Poems from a lost lost land in a foreign country: about Ali Schirasi, Persian poet in German tongue

(Persepolis, ancient Persian capital, now ruins; wikipedia en/GerardM/GNU)

On twitter I tweeted lyrics by Persian poet Ali Schirasi, who has been living in Germany since the Ayatollah revolution in his country.
This is his website including a blog, both posted in German & in Farsi, not in English. The now 69 years old was born in a small village near Tehran and became a teacher for the yound children at the early age of 16. Later he studied at university, became a maths teacher and coached students for university entrance tests.

In the 1960s, he was one of the first Persian teachers to help building up a union; 1975 he was imprisoned by the Shah regime together with his wife Solaleh, a maths teacher like him, and came free 3 years later after an intervention by the International Red Cross; 1983 he was imprisoned again: this time by the Iranian Mullah regime. Ali Schirasi escaped from prison and together with his wife, in 1987 fled the Iran for good. The couple makes a living as authors and lecturers on Persian culture and traditions in South Germany, in a town on the banks of
Lake Constance. They write books together and by themselves, awarded with many prizes. Ali Schirasi has published some collections of poetry; they are all written in German. In his native Persia, Ali Schirasi, the poet, is unknown.

I know lots of elderly men like Ali Schirasi: most of them liberal thinking academics who were a thorn in the side both of the Shah and of the Mullah regime. Germany, my country, gave them shelter when their country, Persia, was lost in the hands of scums and fanatics. Some of them I found as sellers - at local flea markets; but they´d kept their dignty. Higly scholared, friendly, polite, respectful, esp. to women, so different from the noisy and trashy majority of sellers - German and not German - you find at German flea markets usually. These men sell carpets, jewelry, watches and optical instruments like binoculars and cameras. Always good for a surprise. Can you imagine a conversation on a flea market with a Persian binocular seller about Zoroastrianism? So couldn´t I, but I had such a conversation. Showed me what a power is in Persian civilisation.

Some weeks ago I came across a fine copy of a collection of poems written by Ali Schirasi. Inscribed in green ink. and with a Persian sign under the inscription. The small book has a dark yellow cover with a fine vignette on the front and was published at Staphanus Edition/Udingen/Lake Constance, 1st edition 1997 (a small publishing house that doesn´t exist anymore, like so many of its kind). The copy looks like this one shown at Ali Schirasi´s website.

A quotation from the poem "Tanz unter dem Apfelbaum" bei Ali Schirasi

V Das Revolutionstribunal

Der Vorsitzend:
ein junger Molla
mit langem Bart.

Die Zeugen:
die Hüter der Revolution.
Die Angeklagten:
Mann und Frau,
Jung und Alt,
Klein und Groß,
Braut und Bräutigam
in ihren farbenfrohen Kleidern.

Zur Last gelegt wird:
der Braut - das Tanzen,
dem Bräutigam - das Tanzen,
allen - das Tanzen.

In each of his poems you feel the author´s deep longing for his lost Persia. May his dreams come true soon.

Anybody interested in the copy? please, send me a mail.

Farewell, little Amazon Bookshop. Closed the Shop Window until further notice.

I´ve closed my little Amazon bookshop until further notice. It´s not Amazon´s fault, but the feedback and validation system is flaw: as an Amazon bookseller, you can´t do anything against bad feedback, even if you´re totally sure the buyer is wrong and just wants to be nasty. There are besides many nice & fair bookbuyers freaks & bad people browsing the internet who abuse the anonymity of the cyberspace. Guess true lovers of rare & antiquarian books don´t buy at Amazon´s. And by the way: German buyers are not the friendliest in the world - being polite and friendly, Hoeflichkeit ß Freundlichkeit, are foreign words in this country; and those who are the least affluent and buy books for 50 Cents are the most avid critisizers. And Germans are first class bargain hunters, to sell antiquarian books at a good price is very, very difficult.

So I closed the shop window. Maybe I will re-open with genuine antiquarian and rare books in my own new antiquarian bookstore, let´s wait and see. Time for concentrating on writing I guess. Selling used and second-hand books of no value really sucks.

This blog will not be closed, but I´m planning a second one on different issues, more personal, and in English only. See u, guys! /Uih, I´ve changed into a twitteratus:-). Too much twittering changes your use of language.

Signed or inscribed? Youtube lectures on collecting rare books.

Erik Bosse (or is it Bosee? you should clarify that question, folks!) from Dallas, Texas, gives good advice for rare books sellers & collectors on the internet. Luv to watch him and listen to his interesting and well informing lectures. Tx, Erik! (to the other rare books "expert" trampling on my nerves in masses of youtube videos: looking at your extremely dirty and neglected fingernails you present in your videos isn´t a mere pleasure. What a calling card for a rare books seller! (and you talk to fast, Miss, sorry).

Erik´s family has been running an antiquarian bookstore in Dallas for more than 60 years, specializing on Americana, (South-)Western history and Texana (but not exclusively); it´s the oldest antiquarian book store in the Southwest of the United States: The Aldredge Book Store; since 2003 online only.

Watch Erik lecturing on signed and inscribed books:

Duerer in Lithuania. A Rare Book dedicated to one of Europe´s most famous artists in history

Among antiquarian items concerning "things German" the most wanted and most precious collectibles are rare books and graphics from the German renaissance era of Albrecht Duerer. Many enthusiasts regard this era one of the most important of European culture
ever. Huge sums of money are paid. Duerer is a goldmine for fine arts and booksellers - and for private and public collectors who´re in need of cash. So they browse the attics to find an original Duerer if lucky. Even high class institutions like the
Jesuit University of San Francisco consigned their Duerer items - a collection of original graphics - to an auction house in a symbolic act of "burning the furniture to keep it warm", as an arts professor pointed out.

One of the most popular and often copied self-portrait paintings in the oeuvre of Albrecht Duerer is this one: the artist as a young man; presented in Nuremberg Duererhaus, where the city´s most famous son lived an worked.

A print of this famous portrait picture covers the copy of a book I recently bought together with a bunch of copies of Lithuanian books on arts and archaeology (I wrote about those items in this blog). The book is written in Lithuanian language and is a translation from the Russian. Titel of the book: Albrechtas Diureris. Author: Sergejus Lvovas. Translator: Marija Macijauskiene. Vilnius 1982 (first ed. in Russian 1977). Vaga publishers, Vilnius. 344 pages. Hardcover binding in a not fine but good condition, edges mildly damaged. cutting and pages mildly tanned, spine ok, no further damages. Former price printed on the back cover: 1 rb 70 kp.

The book is very rare and as far as I know not offered on the internet except for this copy; libraries in Vilnius and Klaipeda have copies of the book in stock. No further information on the author available. Who´s interested in purchasing the copy should contact me via email or twitter. Please apologize my flaw photography skills. Tx.

Having expended my secondhand and rare bookselling activities I´ve developed some good contacts to bookowners from Russia, Ucraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, some of them schollared, all of them "bookish" but willing to sell; if you mail me your special interests I´d start investigating.

About a Boy and a Book. Michael Ende´s The Everlasting Story published 30 years ago.

Bookshops in film, part 2

One of the most famous German books setted - partially at least - in an antiquarian bookshop is Michael Ende´s fantasy novel
The Neverending Story (die Unendliche Geschichte), published in 1979. The book was a big success, translated to many languages and filmed in 1984 by German Hollywood director Wolfgang Peterson and produced by Bernd Eichinger (The Downfall/Der Untertan). Leo di Caprio´s production company Appian Way , Warner Broth. and others are said to be "in discussions" about a modern reviving. Die Unendliche Geschichte about a bookshop, a book, a boy and his adventures in real life and in phantasy was Michael Ende´s biggest international success and a role model for blockbusters in books and on screen with a similar plot and attitude, Joanne K. Rowlings Harry Potter (isn´t in need of a link, is it?) and Cornelia Funke´s Inkworld Trilogy; Ende was the first.

As for me, I didn´t read the book, but watched the film on German tv some years ago, when my children were still young. Nice entertainment, as far as I remember, nothing more. Michael Ende hated the film and it´s kitschy Hollywood attitude lacking - in his opinion - magic and enchantment. My children loved the Steinbeisser (Stone Biter) who, together with other creatures from the film, can be visited at
Warner Brothers Movie World.

"What is the secret of the enchanted book?" (film trailer in English)


Michael Ende on why he disgusts what producer and director made of his book; and the making of (with the Felsenbeisser stunt).


This posting is dedicated to Michael Ende, whose book Die Unendliche Geschte was published 30 years ago. Michael Ende died 1995 at age 65 in Bavaria. The title of the book that brought him to fame became kind of a metaphor in German language for complicated and endless matters and affairs

On Lithuania´s silver age. A rare book by archaeologist Laima Vaitkunskiene

In my neighbourhood live many immigrants from former Soviet Union countries, not only from Russia but from Kasakhstan, Ucraine and Lithuania. Some of them are socalled "Russlanddeutsche", members of the
German minority in Russia and the Soviet Union; others, esp. those from Ucraine and Lithuania, are Jews; though most of them in Germany have to make their living on social welfare, many of those immigrants are well educated academics, engineers, mathematicians, chemists or physicians. And they brought their books with them. Some of these books end up at the junk dealer´s around the corner, for the reason of monetary tightment, decease etc.. So I came across a very remarkable book written in Lithuanian language:

Laima Vaitkunskiene. Sidabras senoves Lietuvoje. Vilnius "Mokslas" 1981, 125 pages.

Subsequent to the Lithuanian text is a summary in Russian (cyrillic) and in German: the book deals with the country´s rich archaeological stock of silver items: jewelry, weapons and harnesses from ad 2-13. As the author tells us, silver was of huge cultural and religious importance in ancient Lithuania and connected with beauty, wealth and magical power, much more thand gold or iron: Lithuanian mythology tells many tales of enchanted silver treasures. As there were no silver mines in the country, the precious material was robbed during wars or was imported, e.g. from the Romans, and made to jewelry. The items shown in the book were digged during archaeological excavations.

The author, Laima Vaitkunskiene, was stuff member of the Lithuanian Institute of History and Archaeology at Vilnius University. She also researched the importance of amber for
Lithuanian culture. The book is in a very fine, almost flawless condition, with undamaged dust wrapper and cover, cutting and pages; flawless paper, friendly to the nose. Many photos and drawings. The book is rare and, at the moment, not available on the internet. It is kind of a standard works and cited in many articles online concerning Lithuanian history and archaeology. Various libraries have copies of the book in stock, in Lithuania and at the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center in Chicago, USA. Currently unavailable at Amazon.

For further information, please send me an e-mail, if you like.

Bonanza in the pocket. Old pocket books with artful cover illustrations are going collectible. Keep an eye on it!

There are people who start collecting books, esp. pocket books, just because of the smart, awsome or thrilling front cover illustrations, says AbeBooks in a special feature on this item. Call me Nostradamus, but in, let´s say, ten years, when paper books will be replaced by e-books, artful and extravagant front cover illustrations even of cheap pocket books will find their niche and become collectible at high prizes. So keep an eye on your pocket book and don´t sell it too early: who waits and sells in time, will maybe make a fortune.

Popular pocket books published in numerous and various editions for decades, have been printed with different covers representing the spirit of a decade: studying pocket book cover illustrations scholarly, tells a lot about culture and society in the years when the book was published.

Especially the old illustrated covers of British Penguin and Pelikan books have got their fans: books were published, magazins edited amazing collections, sets were uploaded at flickr; in 2006, the British Design Museum in London dedicated an exhibition to the national trademark Penguin Books and its gifted illustrators.

My favorite Penguin cover design which I proudly present on this blog, is by Michael Kitson: it was created in the 1960s for a book by H.J. Eysenck: Sense and Nonsense in psychology. It was first published in 1954 with a much more understated cover, still available at Amazon Marketplace. The 1968 edition I have in store is more of the psychedelic and Big Brother department; isn´t the eye awsome? I do love it. Inspite of avid googeling, I didn´t find any facts concerning the artist; what a pity.

The book´s author, H.J. Eysenck, was of German origin and lived and worked in London: the Berlin-born psychologist, who as a young man had left his native Germany in the 1930s because of political reasons (he wasn´t Jewish), was professor at the Institue of Psychiatry and was not the founder of but a major contributor to the modern scientific theory of personality, as Wikipedia tells us; H.J. Eysenk published about 50 books, of which "Sense and Nonsense" became one of his most popular with many editions; he died 1997 at age 81.

Quotation from the book, chap. 3, Telepathy and Clairvoyance, p. 106 of this edition: "According to T.H. Huxley it is a customary fate for new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions."

Who is interested in this copy should send me an e-mail. attention: this old copy has got a certain "smell" of age and longtime waiting for a new and caring shelf.....

Beyond Winnetou. A glimpse at Swedish children´s book author Stig Ericson and his Native American Adventures.

Germans love books dealing with the Native Americans. Most of us grew up with the leatherstockings tales and struggled through the not always light-hearted to read matter; same thing with the very German "Western novels" by Saxonian trash author Karl May, which have been loved and read for decades. For generations of readers, the picture of American Indian and Western frontier life and history was coined by Karl May, who also wrote widely popular adventure novels setted in the Arabian lands. To tell the truth, in our time, young readers no longer reach as avidly as their parents and grandparents for those tomes. But Karl May is a still beloved author for the "mature youth" who stick to the lost days of boyish reading adventures guided by brave and noble Apache chief Winnetou and his blue-eyed German "blood brother" Old Shatterhand; as for the young ones, only for Carnival Winnetou returns.......

Apart from those kitschy and pseudo-heroic Karl May novels and the Germans running "wild for Winnetou",
children´s books dealing with "authentic" Native American life conquered our book market in the 1960s and 1970s: most of these books had a pubiscient young hero who went through lots of exciting and educating adventures on his way to adulthood; in conflict with "red" traditions and the challenges of "white" civilisation, the boys are to recognize their mission. These "political correct" books, mostly written by former teachers (most of them women), were superpopular among children´s librarians and elementary school teachers; they especially boomed during the 1980s with their strong attitude towards "green" and peace movement politics: it was the time when almost every single environmentally picked German university student had this notorious Cree prophecy stuck to his car or bag; the most successful German "Indianerbuch" of this period was Fliegender Stern (Flying Star) by children´s book author and former teacher Ursula Woelfel; the book is still read at school (so did my children) and is available in many new and used copies at Amazon Marketplace.

Among those many European children´s book authors who used - and in a way abused - Native American affairs as a scenography for their own purposes following a fashion, was Swedish jazz musician, teacher and journalist Stig Ericson, who started a second career in writing. The native of Stockholm, who 1970 was awarded with the Nils Holgersson plaketten, a Swedish national literary award named after a famous work of fiction by Selma Lagerlöf, gained popularity with his children´s books setted in the wild, wild West. In Sweden, children´s radio shows based on "Western" plots by Stig Ericson are still aired; Stig Ericson died 1986 at age 57. Further information on this once widely read Swedish children´s book author is not available on the internet.

In Germany, the author never gained the popularity as a teller of "Indian stories" for children like in his native Sweden. "Abenteuer der Weissen Feder" (White Feather´s adventures), first published in Swedish in 1971 (in German 1972), was one of his biggest successes. The book is still read and can be found at German children´s libraries and at Amazon marketplace,
of course, mostly in 1990s editions; the copy I have in store is a rare one and from the 1st edition of the German translation: as far as I know the only copy of this edition offered via internet not from a public library, as Eurobuch tells you. (Suppose the book was highly esteemed among librarians and teachers, but not among parents and children;-)).

A first class chance for the avid children´s book collector to buy a fine book for his private wigwam;-).

"Where they have burned books.....". On May 10, 1933, Berlin students rehearsed the Holocaust.

76 years ago, on May 10, 1933, Berlin students gathered around a fire and burned "un-German" books at the Opernplatz. May that never happen again!

"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings" (Heinrich Heine)

From Italy with love. A fine vintage Campania guidebook longing for a cozy shelf.

It´s raining cats and dogs at my place, it´s flipping cold and windy and myriads away from "im wunderschönen Monat Mai" and Heinrich Heine. Maybe a nice armchair traveling to Italy would help. Forget about the Italy of today, dream of the alltime dreamland of chilled-to-the-bones Europeans and North Americans; of blossoming lemon and spicy-smelling pine trees, singing cicadas, a warm night in spring, with a fresh breeze from the Mediterranean, caressing your face, red vine and pasta on the terrace, watching beautiful signore and attractive signori passing by; ancient ruins and brandnew fiat cars, bella figura and mamma mia, fashion, masses of cell phones and Pater Pio, big drama in the streets, canzone and Capri by night - all that kitschy folklore stuff a hearty dose of we´re all in need of from time to time, like a little child needs a lollipop or an addict his shot.

The best way to travel to your pittoresque private Italy without leaving your cozy armchair, is studying a richly illustrated guidebook. Leave the Italy of a Silvio Berlusconi and his Comedy of Errors and School for Wives to the
media and reach for a fine vintage guide to console your shivering soul. Like this one that joined my stock one of these days: it´s about
Campania in southern Italy.

Guide D´Italia: Campania. Napoli. La Campania fra il Garigliano e il Sele e le isole partenopee. Il Cilento eil Vallo di Diano. Fabbri Editori, Milano 1985, 276 pages, with a bibliography and a register. The book is far more than a simple guidebook but a high quality first introduction into Campanian history, culture and landscape,conceived and written under the scientific guidance of Umberto Bonapace, a well-reputed expert for geographic studies from Novarra: his opus magnum, a 5 vol. world geographical encyclopedia, was
translated to English.

The said guidebook is in a very fine vintage condition, with very mildly tanned pages, a red ribbon and a decent odeur pleasing to the nose; the photos the book is packed with are not kitschy but tasteful with pleasant colors and in a good style, so is the washable cover, illustrated with a scenic color photo of Naples. The relatively large volume is rather heavy and made for the domestic coffee table and not for your purse or your rucksack;-). Who is interested in purchasing the book and is in need of further information should contact me via e-mail. The copy I have in stock is the only one available on the internet at the moment. It feels fine at my place, but is longing for a cozy shelf at a true coinnaisseur´s home;-). Help yourself!

Icelandic icon: former president Vigdis Finnbogadottir in a 1988 biography. A chance discovery.

As we all know, Iceland has got a new prime minister: Johanna Sigurdardottir, 66 (by the way: the first - openly - gay female chief-of-state in modern history and married to her companion jenina
since 2002). But Johanna is not the first Icelandic woman who served her country as a high profile politician: from 1980-1996, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, a former teacher of French,was the fourth president of Iceland and the first woman in the world in this position
ever.

One of these days, I came across a fine copy of a biography on Vigdis in Icelandic language: Ein Á Forsetavakt. Dagar í lífí Vigdísar Finnbogadóttur. The author is Steinunn Sigurdardottir (b. 1950), one of Iceland´s most prominent novelists and poets, who recently moved to Berlin. The fiction works of the studied psychologist and former broadcasting journalist are all focused on strong emotions, unfulfilled love and the grandioseness of the Icelandic landscape; most of here books were translated to English, French, German and other languages; the said biography - the only piece of work of this genre in Steinunn Sigurdardottir´s oeuvre - was a bestseller in the author´s native Iceland, published 1988 in several editions at Reykjavik Idunn publishing company (pp 173).

As I don´t speak Icelandic, I can´t tell you about the contents of the book, but can describe its lookings: the dustwrapper, with a large colored photo of the former president in her office, is in a very fine condition, so is the complete book, which is packed with official and private photos: they show a tall, slim, natural blonde lady who seems to have filled her position with a friendly and relaxed dignity in every respect: as a single mother of an adopted daughter, the longtime president of Iceland, similar to the new Icelandic prime minister of our days, was an early and unspectacular icon of women´s lib without making a big fuss about it. Vigdis Finnbogadottir is still active and works as a representative for the UNESCO; her special interest is the protection of landscape.

There is a large handwritten dedication in Icelandic on the endpaper, which is the only "damage" I could discover. I found the book - as I often do - in a local charity shop kept by the protestant church. And I wonder how this very special book found its way to this hidden place in a German city. Sometimes the mysterious and hidden story behind a book that comes my way makes me dreaming and pitching a tale;-); maybe good stuff for writing a book by myself:-).

Searching the internet, I found just one single copy of the book for sale -
in Iceland. German antiquarian booksellers offer biographies of Vigdis Finnbogadottir written in Icelandic language by different authors, but not this one. Who is interested in purchasing should contact me via e-mail.

Having this Icelandic book lying on my desk and looking at the very unique Icelandic letters, memory comes along and drives me kind of sentimental: bringing back my teenage years and the picture of a young boy with a cute accent, stiff-as-a-poker movements while doing the disco bump, wearing old-fashioned shirts and trousers and funny multicolored shoes. He robbed my heart and was destined to be my very first; and he was from Iceland; but this is another story to tell.

Please pardon the flaw quality of the photos: I´m a lousy photographer! p.1: in the presidential office; p.2: as a language student in Grenoble, France; p.3: riding a pony with daughter Astrid.

And Bogi, by the way, if you happen to pass this blog: yes, it´s you I´ve been talking about!

On my little Couch. Holly and Carrie, waiting.

I follow PenguinBooks on Twitter and they sent me an email! Asked about my favorite book. Nice guys;-). Here it is: Breakfast at Tiffany´s, of course (why of course??). I adore Truman Capote. When I was young, I loved the movie and Audrey Hepburn (so does my sweet 17 at home: back home from her first trip to New York City with her Dad, she proudly presented her brandnew Audrey-Tiffany´s-Shirt;-)); in my mature years, I think Capote was right to prefer Marilyn as Holly:

Audrey was a Belgian noblewoman with a British father; Marilyn would have been the better choice for playing this broken American country rose, abused as a child, spoilt as a teenager and used as a woman; Audrey, a former professional ballet dancer, is nothing but a pretty face and chic coat-tree and no actress (and she knows); George Peppard is a big pain in the arse, a true joke as Mary Astor´s toyboy and definitly not gay like the guy in the novel; shame on Jerry Lewis as Mr Yunioshi; and - from the point of narrative technique - an important character like Joe, the Bartender that structures the whole story, in the movie is of no importance at all. And I do hate Audrey singing and the Hollywood happy ending crap (Maryilin would have given it the ironic treatment).

Have got a smart and not that often offered copy of this umpteen times edited novel still beloved by readers up to this very day - a British pocket edition of 1961, republished 1962 (twice), 1963, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1969. The cover illustration of an unknown artist is gorgeous, pop art-like and puts it in a nutshell, doesn´t it? The edition is pretty rare and of a good, not quite fine, condition. Collectors interested should contact me via this blog.

At the moment, Holly is taking a nap on my brandnew bookshop couch- together with
Sister Carrie ("abridged for modern readers"), ed. 2nd printing nov. 1962 (first oct. 1962) for the mass market by Pocket Books Inc., Rockefeller Center, NYC (those with "Gertrude the Kangaroo"), published by arrangement with Mrs Theodore Dreiser. With an introduction (with parts of it edited in the New York Times Book Review 1949) by editor Maxwell Geismar, a New York college professor, literary critic and biographer (read about Maxwell Geismar at the New York State Literary Tree); the especially fine, advertising-poster-like front cover illustration is by Roy Price, as the back cover tells me. I found this one by Roy Price at artnet - must have been the same model, maybe his girl! Nothing more is told about this almost forgotten artist on the internet - would like to know more: anybody there who could tell me?

By the way: both pocket books are for sale; the little obviously handmade couch is not: guess where I found it? On the street - waiting all by itself for the bulk rubbish truck! I took it home and will keep it as a resting place for my paper guests on their journey through. This time for Carrie and Holly.

Both books are listed - together with numerous exciting and interesting editions offered by various bookshops from the US, from the UK and from Europe - at Amazon-.

"In your rocking chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel." Or on my little couch......

"Coquetting with the moon". Adalbert Stifter´s early novella "Der Kondor" in a smashing English translation

This very amazing booklet I found in a local charity shop: charity shops with their masses of books brought in from apartment clearances, are genuine bonanzas for the happy hunter: among old hymnbooks, novels by Barbara Steel and Danielle Cartland (or is it the other way round?) and how to-manuals for lucky stroke survivers, you sometimes stumble over a gem like this one:

"The Condor" is an apparantly mousy booklet of 41 pages, published in 1946 in Vienna, at Amandus-Edition (off the market). It´s a novella by Austrian narrative writer
Adalbert Stifter and it´s in English; the front carton cover in light blue is illustrated with the author´s sketched profile. The translator is Patricia de Ferro. The text of the novella is prefaced by Monique Sandrier. The booklet is in a almost fine condition, mildly sun-bleached at the edges.

Adalbert Stifter has never been one of my favorites; we read Abdias, a ponderous and long-winded story about man and fate, at school and I missed empathizing. My first encounter with Adalbert Stifter was my last; maybe I was too young for a writer like this and I should give him a second chance in my mature years.

Der Kondor (originally written "Der Condor"), an early work, was first published in 1840, when the author was 35; it founded his fame as a very special and unique narrative writer in the German literary world. As the English preface to this fresh and smashing translation tells us, the plot is about a painter and his strugglings with life and science, lust and continence, love and art (some of Stifter´s leading leitmotifs throughout his complete work), told in a decidedly artistic way: Stifter, besides his writing career, was not only strongly interested in life sciences (an important aspect of this text, too), but an ambitious painter: the booklet is illustrated with one of his paintings called "clouds". Not an easy-to-read text, and as Ms Sandrier tells us: "The readers are invited to feel and see, rather than to understand."

Want to read the first sentence of the story in English? "At two o´clock on a beautiful moonlight night in June a cat strolled along the ridge of a roof, coquetting with the moon." While writing this on my blog, a love-sick cat is screaming loudly in the abandoned streets in the neighborhood - and it´s about 2 o´clock! Magic!

Adalbert Stifter, a cloth-weaver´son, was an alcoholic, suffered from cirrhoses and, while in hospital for medication, stubbed himself to death with a razor; he was 62.

Amazon offers you numerous copies of various editions of
Der Kondor: this is the complete text on the internet. As far as I know, I can offer you the only copy of an translation into English available on the internet. Collectors are friendly invited to send me an E-Mail. All books I present on this blog are for sale.

Achtung, Sammler: diese englische Übersetzung einer frühen Novelle Stifters íst äußerst rar und meines Wissens die einzige überhaupt, die im Internet angeboten wird; sie stammt aus dem Jahr 1946 und wurde bei Amandus-Edition, Wien, publiziert. Die Übersetzung besorgte Patricia de Ferro; das sehr kundige und empathische Vorwort verfasste Monique Sandrier; über beide Damen ist nichts weiter bekannt. Sammler mögen gerne Kontakt aufnehmen.