Verna B. Carleton

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Verna B. Carleton (born February 5, 1914 in New Hampshire , † May 28, 1967 in New York ) was an American journalist and writer. She was one of the artistic circles in Paris and in Mexico City during World War II and worked closely with Gisèle Freund .

Verna B. Carleton (1961)

Life

Verna B. Carleton was born in the USA as the daughter of an Englishwoman and a father of German origin named von Kessler. Her father abandoned the family early on, and her mother moved her to New York. Verna didn't forgive her father for leaving her, so she only signed Verna Breed using her mother's last name. One day when she was walking past the posh Carlton Hotel, she decided never to use his name again, and from then on she called herself Verna B. Carleton. At age 19, she met her husband, Mexican doctor Ignacio Millan, who was just graduating from Memorial Cancer Research Center, New York City, while keeping his head above water by playing the organ at Radio City Music Hall .

Verna B Carleton 1932/1933, portrayed by Marion Greenwood in New York

They first met in Marion Greenwood's studio, where Carleton's portrait was being painted. After three months they married, with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo as best man. Even Leon Trotsky was one of the close friends.

This is how Carleton came to Mexico and the artistic circles there. She got involved with the exiles of World War II living in Mexico, Anna Seghers and Egon Erwin Kisch were also regular guests. She has written articles on Mexico for The Saturday Evening Post , The New Yorker, and Collier's Weekly .

As a young woman, Carleton traveled to Europe and found a adopted home in Paris, where she socialized with Sylvia Beach and many personalities from literary life. Until her death she was a close confidante of Gisèle Freund, her "Darling Vee". Together they edited the book James Joyce in Paris (1965), for which Simone de Beauvoir wrote the foreword, and they traveled to Germany together in 1957 - Carleton had encouraged Gisèle Freund to face their German homeland after the Second World War. On this trip not only Gisèle Freund's famous Berlin photos were taken, but also Verna B. Carleton's debut novel Back to Berlin. An Exile Returns (Eng. “Back in Berlin”) is based on the two women’s visit to Berlin.

The novel was first published in 1959 by the American publisher Little, Brown and Company (Boston / Toronto) and in Germany in 1962 by Rütten & Loening (Hamburg). In 2014, Aufbau-Verlag arranged for a new translation of the work and won the writer and historian Ulrike Draesner as editor. The publisher found the daughter and heiress, secured world rights to the book and suggested a Spanish and a Dutch translation. With the help of her daughter, Ulrike Draesner reconstructed the author's life story, about which there was practically no accessible information until then and which would almost have been forgotten.

In 1965 Carleton, now separated from her husband, returned to Mexico, where her daughter was expecting the second child. In 1967, when Gisèle Freund was busy preparing for "Vees" return and preparing her apartment for Sylvia Beach, who had died a few years earlier, Carleton died of cancer in New York.

plant

  • Verna B. Carleton (with Gisèle Freund): James Joyce in Paris. His final years . Harcourt, Brace & World, New York 1965. With an afterword by Simone de Beauvoir.
  • Verna B. Carleton: Back to Berlin. To Exile Returns . Little, Brown and Company, Boston / Toronto 1959 (German edition: Zurück in Berlin . Roman. Edited and with an afterword by Ulrike Draesner. From the American by Verena von Koskull . Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-351 -03642-3 , pp. 377-395).
  • Verna B. Carleton: The Hour of Departure . Heinemann, London / Melbourne, 1963.

literature

  • Bettina de Cosnac: Gisèle Freund. One life . Arche, Zurich / Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7160-2382-2 .
  • Ulrike Draesner: Landscapes of Loss, Landscapes of Return . Epilogue in: Verna B. Carleton: Back in Berlin . Novel. Edited and with an afterword by Ulrike Draesner. From the American by Verena von Koskull . Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-351-03642-3 , pp. 377-395.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrike Draesner: Landscapes of Loss, Landscapes of Return . Epilogue in: Verna B. Carleton: Back in Berlin . Novel. Edited and with an afterword by Ulrike Draesner. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2016, pp. 377–395.
  2. ↑ Interviews with Claudia Millan, daughter of Verna B. Carletons, living in Mexico City, carried out by Aufbau-Verlag in 2016.
  3. ^ Bettina de Cosnac: Gisèle friend. One life . Arche, Zurich / Hamburg 2008, p. 199.
  4. ^ Bettina de Cosnac: Gisèle friend. One life . Arche, Zurich / Hamburg 2008, p. 186.
  5. ^ Bettina de Cosnac: Gisèle friend. One life . Arche, Zurich / Hamburg 2008, p. 219
personal data
SURNAME Carleton, Verna B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Breed, Verna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH New Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1967
Place of death New York City