Overview
A landmark literary event: join Samuel Beckett on his journey through Third Reich Germany in these extraordinary diaries—the last meaningful unpublished writings of the Nobel Prize-winning author of Waiting for Godot
“The little trouble I give myself, this absurd diary with its lists of pictures, serves no purpose, is only the act of an obsessional neurotic. Counting pennies would do as well.”
Only once in his life did Samuel Beckett keep a diary of any length, when he took an extended trip through Germany, during the fateful months of September 1936 through April 1937. In his estate were found the six capacious volumes of diaries that he kept on this journey which form the text of German Diaries.
Beckett’s German Diaries give insight on the development of his textual aesthetics and views on literature and visual art. They also show his motives for taking this extraordinary journey and are imbued with a historic significance thanks to the clear eye that Beckett, even as a thirty-year-old, was able to cast on everyday life of the early years of Nazi Germany.
Beckett encounters the effects of Nazi cultural policy in his visits to museum depots to see paintings removed from display and develops his understanding of the cultural boycott through conversations with artists and collectors. Equally engaging are his detailed observations about the Nazi character and the troubling acts of antisemitism he witnesses. The text is rich in intimate details—Beckett’s search for less dingy lodgings, his joy in learning German, his attempt to find food and drink that is cheap, plentiful, and perhaps even good.
Taken together, the diaries illuminate a singular personality, as well as the formation of a young artist. With extensive commentary by editors Mark Nixon and Oliver Lubrich, German Diaries is a significant and unique addition to Beckett’s oeuvre and a landmark cultural moment.
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