José Antonio Benton

José Antonio Benton , actually Hans Gustav Elsas , pseudonym Helmut Gaupp-Turgis (born March 1, 1894 in Strasbourg , † August 1986 in Niterói ) was a German lawyer and writer .

Life

José Antonio Benton comes from a respected Jewish family in Stuttgart . He studied law in Tübingen and Romance studies at the University of Munich with Karl Vossler . He was admitted to the Stuttgart bar in 1923. He wrote for leading newspapers, including the Frankfurter Zeitung . His tragedy Das Klagelied was performed in 1927 by the Württemberg State Theater. Under his pseudonym Helmut Gaupp-Turgis, he published his satirical social novel Der Biedermann , set in Stuttgart during the Biedermeier period , in 1934 . When the Reichsschrifttumskammer banned Benton from literary work in 1935, he decided to emigrate with his family to Brazil. His wife Maria Theresia Elsas recognized the threat posed by the National Socialists at an early stage and pushed for emigration. So in 1936 the family left Germany by ship to find a new home in Brazil.

Exile in Brazil

In exile in Brazil , Benton became professor of ancient Greek language and literature at the University of Assis in São Paulo . He devoted himself mainly to the study of Brazilian literature of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries as well as Brazilian folk poetry. Benton used motifs and narratives from Brazilian folklore in his novel Tarpán , published in 1938 . Myth of the last Mongolian migration and also in other novels and stories such as The Cambrés Wedding , The Sons of Tamango , Calangro or The Peace Festival of the Animals .

“Benton pursued the myths and the Brazilian folk tales, got them told about the caboclo, the lumberjack, the hunter and fisherman and other natives in their houses and restaurants, and also got them out of old pamphlets and similar to what the Brothers Grimm did with the German fairy tales have been brought back to life through their own and very peculiar design ” , wrote Max Hermann Mayer.

In 1959 Benton became director of the Brazilian Goethe Society and president of the Goethe Academy in São Paulo. In 1970 Benton and his wife Maria Theresia moved to Niterói near Rio de Janeiro , where he died in August 1986. Benton never returned to his hometown of Stuttgart. His estate, which is in private hands, is still awaiting processing.

Works

• Tarpán. Myth of the last Mongol migration. Hamburg (H. Goverts Verlag) 1938
• The sons of Tamango Hamburg (Claassen & Goverts) 1948
• The Cambrés Wedding Hamburg (Claassen) 1950
• Calangro or The Peace Festival of Animals Hamburg (Claassen) 1954

literature

• Izabela Maria Furtado Kestler : The exile literature and the exile of the German-speaking writers and publicists in Brazil Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-631-45160-1 .