Anna Seghers

Ressenya

Anna Seghers' production is characterized by a marked social, political and feminist commitment. In her first stage, this commitment is manifested above all in her militant anti-feixism. Very soon, in 1933, she had to go into exile, and her work constitutes, on the one hand, a profound reflection on this condition, but, on the other hand, it also serves to show her solidarity with those who could not go into exile. Thus, his best-known work, La setena creu, which was made into a Hollywood film, tells the story of seven fugitives from a Nazi concentration camp, one of whom manages to escape from Germany. The novel was intended to become a beacon of hope for the resistance to the Nazi regime. Upon his return to the German Democratic Republic, Seghers became actively involved in the defense of writers' rights.     

Activitats

Justificacions

• Anna Seghers is one of the first German writers who achieved from very early on a great public projection as a writer, intellectual and activist.
• She was a politically and socially committed writer. She fought fiercely against feixism in Germany and around the world.
• Her literature of exile is perhaps one of the most representative of all world literature in this sense. Especially his novel Transit, where he reflects in a very deep way on the condition of the exile.

Biografia

Anna Seghers was born in 1900 in Mainz, Germany, the daughter of art and antiques dealer Isidor Reiling and Hedwig Fuld, both Jewish. 

Between 1929 and 1924 she studied art history, history, sinology and philology at the universities of Heidelberg and Colony. In 1924 she received his doctorate with a study on Rembrandt, and in the same year she published the story "Die Toten der Insel Djal". 

In 1925 she married the Hungarian sociologist László Radványi. Through him, Seghers came into contact with György Lukács. In 1928 she joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and became an activist against the Nazi movement. That same year she published the story "Aufstand der Fischer von Sta. Barbara", for which she received the Kleist Prize. Erwin Piscator produced this work in the Soviet Union. In 1932 she published her novel Die Gefährten, which was a warning of the threat of feixism in Germany. 

In 1933 she was arrested by the Gestapo and soon after she managed to escape to Paris. In 1937 she participated in the II International Congress of Anti-Fixist Writers for the Defense of Culture, which took place in Valencia. 

It was in exile, in France and Mexico between 1933 and 1947, when she wrote her most famous works, dedicated to the fate of emigrants and the resistance to National Socialism. Das siebte Kreuz was published in 1942, and is one of the few works published before the end of World War II dedicated to concentration camps. In 1944 Transit appeared, dedicated to the refugees fleeing from fascism in Europe and waiting in France for a destination in America. The novel appeared first in English and Spanish, and it was not until 1948 that it was published in German, the original language. 

From 1947 onwards, already settled in the Democratic Republic of Germany, she exerted a very important influence on the literary and cultural life of that country. Literature of the Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity), a specifically German aesthetic and literary trend. 

Obres

Bibliografia

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Seghers

http://www.tierradenadie.de/archivo/literatura/seghers/anaseghersbiografia.htm

http://mujeres-riot.webcindario.com/Anna_Seghers.htm

Enfocament Didàctic

Language and literature, social sciences, culture and ethical values. 

Documents