Dorothea S. Baltenstein
Dorothea S. Baltenstein is the collective pseudonym of the four students Gregoria Palomo Suarez, Nadja Züfle, Tanja Kasten and Sandra Zemke, as well as their teacher at the Gabriele-von-Bülow-Oberschule in Berlin , Michael Schmid.
As part of a teaching project , the so-called Project Pegasus , the students and their teacher developed the manuscript for the novel of the same name between September 1995 and May 1998 . 125 elaborately crafted copies of the book were produced in-house and, with the exception of a few withheld copies, were sold. The book was so well received by the readers that a larger edition could have been canceled.
The positive feedback encouraged the group to offer the book to a publisher. However, this project turned out to be less successful at first: Before Eichborn Verlag finally expressed interest in a publication, the team had to accept almost 60 rejections.
However, one of the conditions for publication was that the book was only published under a pseudonym , with no reference to the student project. In addition, some reformulations had to be made and some less important passages shortened. The temporary working title "Death at Borroughmore Castle" was discarded and the novel was finally published under the title Four Days Lasts the Night .
The name "Dorothea S. Baltenstein" was chosen as a pseudonym and a fictional person was created for it. Dorothea Baltenstein should have lived around the turn of the 20th century and committed suicide with pills in 1920, at the age of 30 . Her (only) manuscript was never published and the editor Michael Schmid found it by chance in an attic in the old family estate. The woman never existed, but her story is borrowed from the family history of Michael Schmid.
Half a year after publication, the magazine Stern discovered the secret of Dorothea S. Baltenstein and revealed the student story.
In the meantime, the novel has also been published as a paperback by rororo .
literature
- Dorothea S. Baltenstein: Four days during the night , Eichborn, 2002, ISBN 3-8218-0456-4 (hardcover)
- Dorothea S. Baltenstein: The night lasts for four days , Rowohlt, 2002, ISBN 3-499-23497-1 (paperback)