Escape to the north

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Cover of the first edition

Escape to the North is the first novel that Klaus Mann wrote in exile. It was published in 1934 by Querido Verlag , Amsterdam .

action

The novel is about the classic conflict between love and duty. It tells the story of a young German woman, called Johanna, from a middle-class family, but connected to communism , who fled from the National Socialists to Finland on the estate of the family of her college friend Karin. She falls passionately in love with Ragnar, her friend's brother, and experiences the beauty of Finland's nature with him. A telegram from her brother brings her back to reality because her fellow party member Bruno was shot while fleeing in Germany. She is invited to come to Paris to meet her comrades in order to continue the common struggle. Johanna decides to answer the call.

effect

Escape to the north captivates with the descriptions of the Finnish landscape and the people who live there. Klaus and Erika Mann and their friend Annemarie Schwarzenbach also visited this country on their travels in 1932. Klaus Mann did not include his relationship with the Finn Hans Aminoff in the novel, but told the story of a heterosexual love. However, critics believe that the figure of Johanna looks more like a youth. However, this is also intentional, because as Klaus Mann writes in his autobiography The Turning Point (p. 436), he gave her the traits of the androgynous Annemarie Schwarzenbach. The novel was a success, apart from the book edition, there were 65 episodes as a serial in the exile newspaper Pariser Tageblatt and publications in England by Gollancz and in the USA by Knopf under the title Journey into Freedom .

Ingemo Engström filmed the novel in 1985/1986 .

literature

  • Klaus Mann: Escape to the north. Novel . With an afterword by Uwe Naumann . Extended new edition (= rororo 23451). Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-499-23451-3 ; New edition Rowohlt, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-499-27650-7 .
  • Uwe Naumann: Klaus Mann (= rororo 50695 Rowohlt's monographs ). Revised new edition. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-499-50695-5 .