Willy Keller (theater director)

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Karl Wilhelm "Willy" Keller (pseudonym: JJ Sansombre; born June 9, 1900 in Konstanz , † April 24, 1979 in Rio de Janeiro ) was a German theater director , journalist and translator . As the founder of the German-Brazilian Cultural Institute, Keller was one of the most important people in German exile in Brazil.

Life

Willy Keller worked in Germany since 1921 in various theaters , most recently - from 1932 to 1934 - as a director at the Osnabrück Theater . Denounced as a Nazi opponent and threatened with arrest by the Gestapo , he fled with his family to Porto Alegre , where an uncle of his wife lived. He worked in his uncle's mirror factory without pay, while his wife had a badly paid job as a German trade correspondent. In Porto Alegre, Keller also became editor of the anti-fascist newspaper Die Aktion, published by Friedrich Kniestedt .

After six months, Keller took a coal steamship to Rio de Janeiro to look for work with the German film company Atlântida or elsewhere. In a long letter, dated February 12, 1937, he bitterly describes the lack of career prospects to his friend Hans Rothe :

“When I came to Brazil, I had the hope that there would be something like a primitive theater culture or at least a film industry here. And that for me it would only be a matter of time before I could get back to my job in any way. Less than dreams. By the time Brazil has only created the prerequisites for its own theater culture, generations will have wandered into the eternal hunting grounds. So I cannot acquire a monument here, not even a modest teaching position. "

Keller moved to São Paulo in 1936 , where he worked as an accountant in a large restaurant until 1939 . Since he refused to give his consent to the Third Reich on a German ship that lay outside the Brazilian territorial waters , he was dismissed without notice.

“From that moment on, my family was in danger of total collapse. We first moved to Rio to find accommodation in my sister-in-law's house. My wife managed to find work, but not me. From my wife's first salary we rented a small house, which at that time was still available at affordable prices. Our first table was an upturned box, our first chairs were four upturned boxes, our first beds were nailed together boxes. During this time I took care of the household. This sudden change in role did not initially benefit me or my wife. Nevertheless we got by by some coincidence that I can't explain. 32 years have now passed and I have come to terms with my fate, ”he said in an interview with Werner Röder in 1971.

In 1940, Keller made contact with the group Das Andere Deutschland in Buenos Aires . A few years later he initiated political and journalistic activities with the Notgemeinschaft deutscher Antifaschisten , which was in close contact with the “Argentine” group and with the circle around Friedrich Kniestedt in Porto Alegre. At the same time he founded the emergency library of German anti-fascists , which was supposed to publish the only fiction work of the Brazilian exile . Probably for lack of money, he could not publish any other works, not even his own.

Keller's preoccupation with the Brazilian theater began before the end of the war, with his activity as a choreographer at the Teatro Experimental do Negro at the end of the 1940s being particularly noteworthy. It was only after 1946 that Keller was able to do theater in German.

In 1957, Keller founded the German-Brazilian Cultural Institute in Rio de Janeiro, which he headed until 1969. From 1973 he directed the amateur theater Casa do Estudante do Brasil (House of the Students of Brazil). All of these activities were rewarded with prizes and honors, but they could not secure his livelihood. Over the years, Keller has received many prizes and countless awards for his work as a theater director. He became Carioca Honorário on January 22, 1957 , received the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class on February 22, 1963 from the President of the Federal Republic of Germany , Heinrich Lübke , the Cruzeiro do Sul , official degree on May 22, 1968 , and the Estácio trophy in 1969 de Sá for learned music.

Another area of ​​activity Keller was working as a translator. He translated poems by Brazilian authors into German and organized a work edition that was published in Germany. His translations of Angst by Graciliano Ramos (published by Suhrkamp in 1997), his version of Auto da Compadecida by Ariano Suassuna and his translations by Pedro Bloch also date from this period .

It seems that Willy Keller never thought of returning to Germany.

“In this country, Brazil, whose language I thought I could never understand or speak at first, I discovered that my homeland was not the German earth that one supposedly carries with the soles of one's shoes, but the German language (... ). The struggle to learn a foreign language and not to forget the mother tongue has become the real content of my life, ”he wrote in Exile Theater Rio de Janeiro .

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Keller, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keller, Karl Wilhelm; Sansombre, JJ (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater director, journalist and translator
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Constancy
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1979
Place of death Rio de Janeiro