Irene Kafka

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Irene Kafka , actually Irene Beck (born September 1, 1888 in Mährisch-Ostrau ; † May 9, 1942 in Ravensbrück ) was a translator and poet living in Vienna .

life and work

Although Irene Kafka has translated some popular works from French and English, little is known about them. In 1927, for example, she translated the first German edition of Agatha Christie 's third crime novel Murder on the Links, which was then published by Georg Müller Verlag (Munich) under the title “ Murder on the Golf Course ” . It was Christie's first novel translated into German. The translation of the German-language first edition of Agatha Christie's second detective novel The Secret Adversary, which was published in 1932 under the title “ Die Abenteurer-GmbH ” by Goldmann Verlag Leipzig , was also done by Irene Kafka.

She translated Maurice Baring , Julien Green , Robert Hichens , Francis de Miomandre , Pierre Loti , Moliere , Alfred de Musset , Arthur John Rees and Pierre de Ronsard . Furthermore, Kafka's translations of individual poems by Jules Romains , Marcel Proust , and Émile Verhaeren , as well as some of his own poems , appeared in the Neue Freie Presse and the Neue Wiener Tagblatt in the late 1920s and early 1930s .

In James Joyce 's life and work she has carried in the on 19 July 1931 Frankfurter Zeitung "Maybe a dream" (original title: "Perchance A Dream") published narrative leave marks because this translated from her, but from Michael Joyce coming Work was published under James Joyce's name, in which the latter saw the deliberate abuse of his name: " Maybe a dream but certainly a mess'".

In a letter - written on paper from the Hotel de France in Vienna - she wrote to Joyce's lawyers on August 17, 1931, how it had come about that the newspaper had published her translation of Michael Joyce's story as "James Joyce". Mark Harman, who translated Franz Kafka's Das Schloss in 1998 and his America into American in 2008 , finds the following allusion to Irene Kafka in Finnegans Wake :

"[James Joyce] might appear to be alluding to the Prague writer when he refers disparagingly in Finnegans Wake to the" magpyre's babble towers. " Kafka can mean magpie in Czech, and Kafka wrote a story about the Tower of Babel. The Kafka in question in the Wake, however, is probably not Franz but Irene, the translator, who is getting her comeuppance for mixing up the two Joyces. "

With this Harman has, however, incurred a mistranslation of the name Kafka that is common in the Anglo-Saxon countries : kavka does not mean “magpie” (“black-billed magpie”, magpie ), but rather “daw” or “jackdaw” ( jackdaw ), which is reported after was also seen in the Kafka family emblem.

According to Julien Green, Irene Kafka had introduced herself to him as the sister of a "Franz Kafka". It is true that she is the sister of another Franz ', geb. 1893, was a cousin of the writer. However, Green related the statement to the writer; in relation to this she was a cousin. The misunderstanding in relation to "Franz" could only be attributed to Irene as intent if the exact wording of her communication to Greene was known; but Greene may just as well have reflexively thought of the writer. Your later confusion of James ./. Michael Joyce tempts Irene to be prematurely accused of dishonest intentions.

When Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando was looking for an editor for the dialogues of his play Emperor Joseph and the Railway Warden's Daughter in the spring of 1935 , Fritz Horwitz, the former authorized signatory of A. Wolf Verlag in Vienna, recommended the "very well-known translator (French) Irene Kafka" who, together with Paul Fent (actually Paul Frankfurter), has agreed to “the dialogue processing event. to take over, but they have to see the manuscript for the time being. ”Furthermore, Horwitz writes that he does not share Herzmanovsky-Orlando's“ concerns about political and racial innocence ”of the editors, since these“ do not necessarily have to be named ”. However, Herzmanovsky-Orlando, who had been a member of the NSDAP (foreign organization) since 1932 , wrote to Hermann Schleichert of the Münchner Neuzeit-Verlag on April 27, 1935 , because he knew “nothing about the tribal affiliation of both authors”.

Irene Kafka, who lived with her husband Ferdinand Kafka in the Herrengasse skyscraper , was arrested on May 7, 1940 for “atrocity propaganda” (“writing for anti-German foreign newspapers”) and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp .

On October 25, 1906, Irene Kafka married a merchant in Prague, Arthur Schweizer, (co-) owner of a button factory in Krems an der Donau .

Further translations, own works

  • Maurice Dekobra : Mein System, in "Moderne Welt", 7, Vienna 1926, p. 6 and 18 DNB 01284599X
  • Maurice Dekobra: Invitation to dance, "Modern World", 8, 1926, p. 2f.
  • Maurice Dekobra: The killer's thumb. Die Muskete , July 11, 1932, pp. 624-626; again ibid. October 15, 1936, p. 826f.
  • Maurice Dekobra: The rules of geometry, The Muskete, July 30, 1935, p. 608f.
  • Maurice Dekobra: Beach idyll, freedom! , May 4, 1929, p. 5 (Copyright Feuilleton-Verlag Herzog, Halensee o. J.)
  • Maurice Dekobra: A man with a conscience, Mocca , September 1932, pp. 37-39.
  • IK: Hold still! Poem. Die Waage # 38/39, Vienna, September 23, 1916
  • Lucien Descaves : The Thinker. Sketch, Die Muskete, September 16, 1937, p. 758.
  • Dixie Willson : The captain with the squinting eyes, Arbeiter-Zeitung July 28, 1930, p. 5 (= 1st episode, more in later numbers)
  • IK: At Pariser literati, Die Bühne , 219, Vienna 1929, p. 42f. (Four authors, including Jean Giraudoux )
  • Léon Lafage: A dream. Neues Wiener Journal , October 2, 1932, p. 1f., Features section below
  • Eduard Bourdet : The division of friends. Comedy. Radio broadcast Vienna , August 17, 1930 in the evening
  • Eduard Bourdet: The prisoner. Play, UA Theater in der Josefstadt , May 21, 1926

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Anthony Northey: Kafkas Mischpoche. Kleine Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek, 6. Wagenbach, Berlin 1988, p. 64, in the caption to a family photo from before 1914.
  2. ↑ The date of death is based on information that the DÖW 2018 no longer represents. To that extent it is unproven; there are no other sources. The year of birth is unclear, it is mentioned as 1890 by Murray G. Hall : Der Paul Zsolnay Verlag. From the foundation to the return from exile. Studies and texts on the social history of literature, 45. de Gruyter, Berlin 1994, again 2011, p. 254.
  3. ↑ Joyce's engagement with the Frankfurter Zeitung has also left its mark on world literature: In Finnegans Wake , the following passage can be read: "… making his reporterage on The Adam case for the Frankfurter Siding, a Fastland payrodicule…", on which the subheading by Hans Wollschläger Roman Herzgewächse or The fall of Adam alludes aware.
  4. ↑ Kafka gave a mistake by their secretary as the reason for the mix-up between the two Joyce. That is not very believable. She had already translated something by Michael Joyce in 1929, so both she and any secretary was aware of the difference between the two authors. Michael Joyce: Nachtgespenster , in Jugend , vol. 34, # 15, 1929 full text
  5. ^ Mark Harman: Joyce and Kafka. In: The Sewanee Review, Vol. 101, No. 1, Winter 1993, pp. 66-84, p. 70
  6. ↑ Reiner Stach : Kafka from day to day: Documentation of all letters, diaries and events. S. Fischer, Frankfurt 2018, on October 25, 1906. Stach calls her "22 years old" on her wedding date; this does not match the age reported by the DÖW (year of birth 1888). It would have to be clarified whether the fault is with Kafka, Stach or the archive. Another problem is that in every Kafka family to K. u. k-times, certain first names keep appearing for numerous children, which makes research difficult today.
  7. ^ Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando: Selected correspondence 1885-1954. P. 356.
  8. ^ Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando: Dramas. Volume 6, p. 346.
  9. ↑ Iris Meder, Judith Eiblmayr: House up. The Herrengasse skyscraper and its famous residents. Metroverlag, Vienna 2009; however, see the further note below.
  10. ↑ DÖW. Trigger the search function. The cause and date of death are unknown.
  11. ↑ Marjolijn Storm, 2016, considers the reference to a "Ferdinand Kafka" (manufactured by Meder, Eiblmayr) to be proven wrong; the person didn't exist. As for the term "atrocity propaganda", it could indicate that Kafka had worked for Jehovah's Witnesses in Vienna and was therefore arrested. She discusses this possibility in detail, but stresses that there is in fact no solid evidence. The statements about arrest and her death, also in this lemma, cannot be scientifically confirmed; Kafka does not appear in any of the numerous lists of fatalities in Ravensbrück. Marjolijn Storm's text can be viewed in Google books .
  12. ↑ Reiner Stach: Kafka from day to day: Documentation of all letters, diaries and events. S. Fischer, Frankfurt 2018, on October 25, 1906, available in Google books. Franz wrote a letter to an "Irene Schweizer" on February 23, 1913, cf. Franz Kafka, Briefe 1913–1914 , Volume 2, S. Fischer, Frankfurt 2001, p. 373 (facsimile). Different spelling, also traditional: "Schweitzer". The factory was located in the Dominican monastery, today the museumkrems .
  13. ↑ 1874 - 1953. Lafage at BNF , Lafage was translated a lot in Austria with short texts or plays at the time, especially by Irene Kafka.
  14. ↑ Bourdet later refused to cooperate with the Nazis during the occupation of France. Irene Kafka has translated several of his works
personal data
SURNAME Kafka, Irene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beck, Irene (real name); Swiss, Irene (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION translator
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Moravian-Ostrava
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1942
Place of death Ravensbrück