Erich Kästner, a successful writer in Weimar Berlin

Cover by Walter Trier

 

The German writer Erich Kästner was born in 1899 in Dresden and died in 1974 in Munich. He is known for his critical poetry full of humor, and much loved for his books for the youth. His works have been translated into several languages ​​- particularly his novel for youth Emil and the detectives (1929).

In 1917 he was called to the army. The brutality of his military training made of him a pacifist. In the autumn of 1919, he began studying History, Philosophy, German Language and Theater in Leipzig.

The years he spent in Berlin from 1927 to 1933 were his most productive. In a few years, he became one of the greatest intellectual figures.
He publishes his poems, reports and stories in various publications, including Die Weltbühne and the dailies Berliner Tageblatt and Vossische Zeitung.

In 1929 he published Emil and the detectives , his most famous book for youth. This novel has been sold to more than two million copies in Germany and translated into 59 languages. In this kind of literature, it was a new thing to situate the action in the present time, in the metropolis that was Berlin.

The only literally significant novel of Kästner is Fabian, published in 1930. It is written in a technique that has been called cinematographic. Through the main character, Kästner describes the rhythm and agitation of the 1920s.

Unlike many fellow writers in opposition to the regime, Kästner did not emigrate when Hitler came to power, choosing "internal exile" instead.

 

 

Other covers of Erich Kästner's books by Walter Trier  (Prague 1890 - Canada 1951)