#anna seghers

[vamqira]

"Jans Is Going to Die," Anna Seghers

[koinottsumi]

"All you’ll want is to be allowed to just sit there, never again to get involved in anything. In the past I often got embroiled in things I’m ashamed of today. Just a little ashamed—after all, they’re over and done with. On the other hand, I’d be dreadfully ashamed if I were boring someone. Still, I’d like to tell the whole story, just for once, from the beginning."

— Anna Seghers, Transit

[gregorygalloway]

Anna Seghers (born Anna Reiling, 19 November 1900 – 1 June 1983)

[thepopculturearchivist]

SATURDAY REVIEW, February 8, 1930

[literarycondition]

What can I expect here? You know the fairy tale about the man who died, don’t you? He was waiting in Eternity to find out what the Lord had decided to do with him. He waited and waited, for one year, ten years, a hundred years. He begged and pleaded for a decision. Finally he couldn’t bear the waiting any longer. Then they said to him: ‘What do you think you’re waiting for? You’ve been in Hell for a long time already.

Anna Seghers, Transit            

[a-different-equation]

The Excursion of Two Men in Love

Thanks to Anna Seghers’ legacy you know two things: 

trauma resonates far more when you know the victims by name,

and the first mention of concentration camps in literature (Das Siebte Kreuz/The Seventh Cross). 

You can learn so much more, of course, such as:

being in exile, followed by lost in translation,

how memory shapes (memorial) culture, 

and yes, the mostly unheard voices of female writers. 

Probably, I could write books about Anna Seghers’ life and work. Instead, I penned years ago a short story (ca. 2,500 words). The title is a reference to Anna Seghers’s famous novella, “The Excursion of the Dead Girls”/Der Ausflug der Toten Mädchen, 1946 (read full English translation here). I guess its content is more relevant than ever. The Excursion of Two Men in Love also rather uplifting, because on some days you need your escapism to survive. The photography shows one of Marc Chagall’s work in St. Stephan (Mainz, Germany). 

Lastly, yes, it’s a Johnlock story.

Read it on Ao3 here. 

[ah0uais]

16/11/1973 - Anna Seghers and Christa Wolf during the 7th German Writers’ Congress in Berlin.

[sammeldeineknochen]

Mein Herz, als ob es noch nicht die Leere verstanden hätte, die ihm von nun ab beschieden war, fuhr fort, zu warten.

Anna Seghers: “Transit”, S. 293