Novel
Schacko klak
Not translated into English
Roger Manderscheid · 1988
Synopsis
Chrëscht Knapp, son of a carpenter from Itzig, tells of his childhood from 1935 to 1945, the pre-war years and then the German occupation, and his first great love for Jhuliett Reiter. The narrative moves on two levels: the child's view, followed from the age of four, and that of the fifty-six-year-old man settled in Berlin, who looks back on this past in letters to his childhood friend.
Context
Published by Phi of Echternach, the book opens a trilogy that follows the same character until 1958, through the occupation, the liberation and the post-war years, and which the Centre national de littérature describes as a work of memory with a strong autobiographical element, marked by play on language. Joseph Groben and Paul Kremer reviewed it as early as June 1988. Paul Kieffer and Fränk Hoffmann made a film from it, and an audiobook appeared in 2020.
Who it is for
For those who want to read the German occupation of Luxembourg from a child's point of view, in the language of the country.
Prizes and reception
First instalment of a trilogy whose second volume received the Servais Prize in 1992; it was translated into German in 1997.