Walter Alvare's cellar

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Keller's birthplace on Hoffnungsstrasse in Wollishofen

Walter Alvares Keller (born February 28, 1908 in Zurich ; † September 2, 1965 there ) was a Swiss author . In the 1950s and 1960s he was one of the most successful youth authors in German-speaking Switzerland.

Life

Keller's house at Heinrich-Federer-Strasse 6
Plaque

Since Keller's personal archive has been lost and there is hardly any literature on his person or his work, one has to refer almost exclusively to his autobiographical books «God's white coat hem », «Peter Stäubli what now?» and support «Brazilian Adventure» .

Walter Alvares grew up in the Lee quarter in the "Haus zur Hoffnung", an old timber frame building at Hoffnungsstrasse 7 in Zurich- Wollishofen . His father was the shoemaker Adolf Keller, his mother Karoline was born in Stäubli. From 1924 to 27, Keller completed a commercial apprenticeship in a Zurich trading company. After the recruiting school he emigrated to Brazil in 1927 at the age of 19. At that time, Brazil was one of the countries with an open labor market that you could immigrate to without major administrative hurdles.

The young cellar seemed to have led a rather adventurous life there. First he worked as a brewery worker in São Paulo , later he was a railroad ramp, trader, stone grinder and commercial clerk in the Brazilian interior and finally a transport company in Paraná . In contrast to other Swiss abroad who continued to practice the local customs in Swiss clubs abroad with traditional costumes, flag waving and yodelling, Keller tried to achieve full integration into Brazilian society; He broke off contact with the Swiss Association.

In 1930 he married Margerida Pieper, the daughter of a German-Baltic emigrant in Brazil. In 1930/31 he got caught up in the turmoil of the revolution which brought the dictator Getúlio Vargas to power. After suffering from severe yellow fever with complications, Keller returned to Zurich in 1932. The outbreak of war prevented the couple from returning to Brazil.

Keller was a member of the Social Democratic Party and joined the Zurich Commercial Association in 1944. After 1945 he worked as a representative of the Guido Cornella weaving mill in Amriswil.

After winning the first prize of the Commercial Association, which he won in 1947 with an essay about his experiences in Brazil, Keller began to write. Encouraged by the editor of the Kaufmännisches Zentralblatt, Adolf Galliker , he expanded his article into a larger narrative. On his travels as a representative through Switzerland, he wrote in the waiting rooms of the train stations. Alfred Graber , the editor of the “New Swiss Library”, accepted the manuscript and in 1948 “Brazilian Adventure” was published . In 1951 the second Brazilian novel "A Fool and Two Diamonds" followed . The novel “You are not an angel, Angela” , set in Zurich, was published in 1954. After 1957, the three volumes on Peter Stäubli followed every two years, which finally brought Keller recognition. The books were all published first in the Tages-Anzeiger .

In the years around 1960 his Peter Stäubli trilogy was read with pleasure and often. The books achieved high circulation figures, even if they were largely ignored by the official literary criticism. Peter Stäubli's adventurous experiences in Brazil, which Keller described in Karl May fashion, were particularly popular. Keller's last novel, Anny , was published in 1965 and received good reviews abroad. From 1951 to 1965 Keller was politicized in the Zurich municipal council , where he campaigned for cultural issues, the expansion and renovation of the theater and the promotion of poets and artists. In 1954 he received an honorary gift from the Zurich City Literature Commission.

Keller died after a short, serious illness on September 2, 1965, at the age of 58. Among the guests at the funeral service were, among others, the mayor Emil Landolt and the city councilors Jakob Baur and Rudolf Welter. Keller was recognized as a “pronounced individualist who could not come to terms with the prevailing opinion and who courageously stood up for what he believed was right. He did not choose the path of the opportunist, but wanted to be true to himself. "

In 1966, a memorial plaque was placed at Keller's last residential address at Heinrich-Federer-Strasse 6 in Wollishofen, where he had lived from 1945 until his death.

Works

"The white coat hem"

Keller's work includes seven novels as well as his autobiography:

  • Brazilian Adventure ; Schweizer Druck- und Verlagshaus AG; 1948
  • A fool and two diamonds ; Schweizer Druck- und Verlagshaus AG, 1952
  • You are not an angel, Angela ; Schweizer Druck- und Verlagshaus AG, 1954;
  • God's white cloak hem ; Schweizer Druck- und Verlagshaus AG, 1957
  • Peter Stäubli in Brazil ; Schweizer Druck- und Verlagshaus AG, 1959
  • Peter Stäubli now what ? Schweizer Druck- und Verlagshaus AG, 1961
  • Anny ; Swiss publishing house; 1965
  • Jungle - love - diamonds ; Swiss publishing house; A Brazilian novel 1966 (posthumous)

In the first volume of the Peter Stäubli trilogy “God's white coat hem” (also “The white coat hem” ), Keller describes his childhood and youth in Wollishofen as Peter Stäubli; in the book he calls it Läugelhofen. The white cloak hem is the white band of clouds that lies over the Alps in certain fine weather conditions. Keller describes a scene in which little Peter asks his father on a clear day with a foehn if one can see the good Lord. The father points to the Alps and replies: "On days like this it is as if one saw God's white cloak over the mountains".

"A fool and two diamonds" , "Peter Stäubli in Brazil" and "Peter Stäubli what now?" describe his adventures in South America and the difficult life and the alienation from his old homeland after returning to Switzerland. In the posthumous story «Urwald, Liebe, Diamanten» , Keller tells of his adventurous life. "You are not an angel, Angela - a psychological novel about the emergence and overcoming of jealousy" : The story deals with jealousy within a family in Wollishofen. The book was reissued in 2014. In the socially critical novel "Anny" from 1965, Keller denounced internal party grievances, which earned him criticism from his own party.

Trivia

When the task in 2009 was to give the newly designed square at the tram's terminus in Wollishofen a name, the neighborhood association also suggested the "Walter-Alvares-Keller-Platz" variant; The city then decided on "Wollishoferplatz".

Web links

Commons : Walter Alvares Keller  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger, September 4, 1965, p. 15
  2. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger, September 4, 1965, p. 15
  3. ↑ Dewulf: Walter Alvares Keller: From the tropics to politics
  4. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger of September 9, 1965
  5. ^ Publications by Walter Alvares Keller in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
  6. ↑ Publishing Psychology Education
  7. ^ The house "from the other basement", Tages-Anzeiger , February 12, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Keller, Walter Alvares
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH September 2, 1965
Place of death Zurich