Thomas Wolfe

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Wolfe 1937, photo by Carl van Vechten

Thomas Clayton Wolfe (born October 3, 1900 in Asheville , North Carolina , † September 15, 1938 in Baltimore , Maryland ) was an American writer .

Life

Wolfe was born the last of eight children in Ashville, North Carolina to an Irish-Scottish mother and a Pennsylvania German stonemason. He studied for four years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , was an actor with the Carolina Playmakers and continued to study at Harvard University from 1920 . After failures as a playwright, he held a position as a lecturer in American literature and English at Washington Square College, New York University, from 1924 to 1929, which he then gave up to devote himself entirely to writing. Sinclair Lewis paid tribute to him in his 1930 Nobel Prize speech with the words:

There is Thomas Wolfe, a boy of, I think, thirty or less, whose only novel Look Homeward, Angel can be placed alongside our best literary works, a colossal creation with a deep lust for life.
Thomas Wolfe's home in Asheville, North Carolina

Wolfe made six trips to Europe. Between 1926 and 1936 he traveled through Germany (these trips totaled eight months), back and forth between Munich, Berlin, Wiesbaden, Bonn, Cologne, Leipzig, Frankfurt and Freiburg. He visited the Oktoberfest, the Black Forest, museums and bars. During the 1936 Summer Olympics he was in Berlin , where he met his German publisher Ernst Rowohlt . His insight into the changed conditions in Germany is reflected in Es haben kein Weg zurück , where he clairvoyantly describes the arrest of a Jew at the border of the Reich.

In the expressionist poet Hans Schiebelhuth , he found a congenial translator for his first two novels, who contributed to Wolfe feeling at times more valued in Germany than in his homeland. William Faulkner was one of his admirers in America and Hermann Hesse in Germany . He died of brain tuberculosis in 1938 and was buried in the family grave in his hometown of Asheville , which he immortalized as Altamont . Tissue and rock and There is no way back were posthumously compiled from the mass of manuscripts left behind.

Works

German-language editions

German first edition, Rowohlt, Berlin 1932
  • Look home, angel! A story of buried life ( Look Homeward, Angel. A Story of the Buried Life. 1929), German translation by Hans Schiebelhuth , Berlin 1932, Hamburg 1954; * readable on Gutenberg, see web links.
    • Look home, angel. A story of buried life ( O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life. UP South Carolina, 2000, first printing of the unabridged first version), German new translations. by Irma Wehrli, commentary by Klaus Modick , Manesse Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-7175-2183-9 .
  • From Death to Morning Stories (From Death to Morning, 1935), German translation by Hans Schiebelhuth, Berlin 1937, Hamburg 1952.
  • Von Zeit und Strom (Of Time and the River, 1935), German translation by Hans Schiebelhuth, Berlin 1936, Hamburg 1952.
    • Of time and flow. Legend of the hunger of man in his youth ( Of time and the river ), German Neuübers. by Irma Wehrli, epilogue Michael Köhlmeier, Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-7175-2326-0
  • The story of a novel (The Story of a Novel, 1936), German translation by Hans Schiebelhuth in Us remains the earth , Zurich 1951.
  • Geweb und Fels (The Web and the Rock, 1939), German translation, Bern 1941 ( Stream of Life ), new edition by Susanna Rademacher , Hamburg 1953.
  • There is no going back (You can't go home again, 1940), German translation by Ernst Reinhard , Bern 1942 and by Susanna Rademacher, Hamburg 1950.
  • Behind those mountains stories (The Hills Beyond, 1941), German translation by Susanna Rademacher, Hamburg 1956.
  • The Complete Stories (Short Stories, 1947)
  • Letters to the mother (The letters of Thomas Wolfe to his mother, Julia Elizabeth Wolfe), German translation by Ina Seidel , Nymphenburger 1949, German 1961 (slightly shortened).
  • Letters (1956), German translation by Susanna Rademacher, Hamburg 1961.
  • Welcome to Altamont! - Manor house , dramas and small plays, German translation by u. a. Susanna Rademacher, Hamburg 1962.
  • The lost boy story, from the American by Erich Wolfgang Skwara. With an afterword by Paul Nizon. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998.
  • Oktoberfest. A literary Wiesn-Schmankerl (A Literary Tidbit from the Munich Beer Festival) , Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2010 ISBN 978-3-7175-4083-0 .
  • Die Party bei den Jacks (The Party at Jack's, 1995), from the English by Susanne Höbel, afterword by Kurt Darsow, Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-71752234-8 .
  • A trip to Germany Ed. Oliver Lubrich , translated from American English by Renate Haen, Barbara von Treskow and Irma Wehrli. Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2020, ISBN 978-3-717524243 .
  • A journey through the west. Translated from the English by Heide Lipecky. With a preliminary remark by Kurt Darsow. Sinn und Form 4, Berlin 2020. ISBN 978-3-943297-54-6 .

more publishments

  • Mannerhouse: A Play in a Prologue and Three Acts (1948), German translation by Peter Sandberg Hamburg 1953, in Willkommen in Altamont! - mansion .
  • A Western Journal: A Daily Log of the Great Parks Trip, June 20-July 2, 1938 (1951)
  • Welcome to our City: A Play in Ten Scenes (1957), German translation by Susanna Rademacher in Willkommen in Altamont! - mansion .
  • The Mountains: A Play in One Act; The Mountains: A Drama in Three Acts and a Prologue (1970)
  • My Other Loneliness: Letters of Thomas Wolfe and Aline Bernstein (Ed. Suzanne Stutman, 1983)
  • The Complete Short Stories (Ed. Francis E. Skipp, 1987)
  • The Good Child's River - a Previously Unpublished Novel (Ed. Suzanne Stutman, 1994)

Film adaptations

Radio plays

literature

  • Hans Helmcke: The family in the novel by Thomas Wolfe . Verlag Winter, Heidelberg 1967, ISBN 3-533-00290-X (habilitation thesis).
  • David H. Holiday: Look homeward. A life of Thomas Wolfe . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2002, ISBN 0-674-00869-3 .
  • Shawn Holliday: Thomas Wolfe and the politics of modernism . Lang, New York 2001, ISBN 0-8204-5104-5 .
  • Ted Mitchell: Thomas Wolfe. A documentary volume . Gale Group, Detroit, Michigan 2001, ISBN 0-7876-3138-8 .
  • Ted Mitchell: Thomas Wolfe. An Illustrated biography . Pegasus Books, New York 2006, ISBN 978-1933-64810-1 .
  • Amélie Moisy: Thomas Wolfe. L'épopée intimate . Edition Belin, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-7011-3429-3 .
  • Herbert J. Muller: Thomas Wolfe in personal testimonies and image documents ( Rowohlt's monographs ; Volume 46). Rowohlt, Reinbek 1962.

Web links

Commons : Thomas Wolfe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. Source birth: Supplement CD audio version of: Die Party bei den Jacks, NDR Kultur, ISBN 978-3-8337-2906-5
  2. "there is Thomas Wolfe, a child of, I believe, thirty or younger, whose one and only novel, Look Homeward, Angel, is worthy to be compared with the best in our literary production, a Gargantuan creature with great gusto of life ". Quote from: Sinclair Lewis: The American Fear of Literature . Nobel Prize Speech, December 12, 1930.
  3. Thomas Wolfe: "A trip to Germany" - From the raw and the spiritual. Retrieved on May 28, 2020 (German).
  4. Jutta Person: Thomas Wolfe on Germany: Pig faces. Retrieved May 28, 2020 .
  5. https://www.bonaventura.blog/2020/thomas-wolfe-eine-deutschlandreise/ meeting accessed on March 31, 2020