Novel
A Child of Our Time
Ein Kind unserer Zeit
Ödön von Horváth · 1938
Opening lines
Ich bin Soldat. Und ich bin gerne Soldat.
I am a soldier. And I like being a soldier.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from zeno.org
Synopsis
A young man whose name the book never gives emerges from several years of unemployment and finds in the army an order that carries him along: he loves his captain as an ideal father and obeys without question. One day on leave, at the fair, he falls for the cashier of a haunted castle without daring to speak to her. Sent with his troop to a neighbouring country, he is seriously wounded in the arm while trying to rescue his captain.
Context
Placed on the lists of banned authors in Germany, its author finished this book in exile in early 1938 and entrusted it to Allert de Lange, the Amsterdam publisher who brought out banned writers; he did not live to see its publication, in the summer. The narrator, the country and the military operation remain unnamed. Michael Tippett took its title for the oratorio he wrote after Kristallnacht, and the novel was adapted for French television in 2003.
Who it is for
A little over one hundred and fifty pages in short sentences. One has to be willing to stay inside the head of a man who approves of what he does, with no voice coming to correct him.
Prizes and reception
The last book completed by its author, which Stefan Zweig regarded as one of the most important German documents of its time.
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