Christoph Hesse, Lukas Laier, Hermann Haarmann (eds.)
Works Vol. 3
Wallstein, Göttingen 2024, 663 pages
ISBN 978-3-8353-5669-6
The focus of the third volume of Hermann Borchardt's works, alongside short stories, is the novel The story of a noblewomanwhich the editors discovered in the author's estate. An abridged English translation of his first novel Die Verschwörung der Zimmerleute was published in New York in 1943 and the original German text was not published until 2005. It was previously unknown that Borchardt had completed another novel. The edition of this work is a minor sensation.
In an ostensibly historical novel, a love story from the German Empire, Borchardt tells of a past in a cheerful tone, which, however, foreshadows the horrors to come. An exile novel in the truest sense of the word, as Borchardt had already begun the work, which he completed in New York in 1944, before emigrating and revised it again and again over the course of 12 years in different places. This volume also includes chapters and fragments that were not included in the novel itself and which provide an insight into the history of the The story of a noblewoman give.