A prohibited book from the 1920s and a filmmaker from the Nazi era

Nevertheless, the book resonated with generations of readers, who had perhaps not been represented in words, even less literature, before. The prohibition of the book may have an equally large impact. Only decades before its publication, the law on obscene publications had chosen not to include lesbianism in its definition of obscenity, fearing to promote practice. Now, the government had prohibited a book on this subject, showing that “lesbianism counts so much that the government can prohibit us and be silent, and it works very well to put you on the cultural map.” This, according to Professor Laura Doan, who co-edited a book on the subject: Pleasant poison to taste: critical perspectives on the well of solitude.

But now, a subsidy of the Arts and Humanité research council in Great Britain gives the classic novel – and its role in the history LGBTQ – New Life. Over the next five years, 100 years of solitude wellA collaboration between the universities of Exeter, York, Loughborough and Cardiff Metropolitan in the United Kingdom, the National Archives and the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, will set up an oral history of the famous Hall book. Thanks to interviews, a new short film by the award -winning filmmaker Campbell X and various workshops and events, the project plans to trace the history of publication, prohibition and the historical and modern impact of the book.

Historical fiction on the filmmaker of the Nazi era represents strange echoes today

Daniel Kehlmann, the son of a Jewish man who grew up in Vienna during the rise of the third Reich, found the spark of inspiration for his new novel of historical fiction, The directorDuring the first Trump administration. Kehlmann noticed how carefully people chose their words, paying attention to what they said and who they said, in a way that echoed the stories he remembered that his father told him of self -censorship during the Nazi regime.

The novel follows the largely forgotten story of the Austrian filmmaker Gw Pabst, who acquired glory during the era of the silent film of Hollywood, to be trapped in Europe torn by the war during a return trip to visit his mother.

Kehlmann did research on the life of Pabst, trying to understand how a director formerly on the left who helped to transform Greta Garbo into an icon came to work for the German propaganda machine which used the work of the slaves of the neighboring concentration camps. (The German film industry was supervised by the Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, and the studios of Berlin and Prague were surrounded by prison barracks.)

It is difficult to imagine something more appropriate, in particular an author with Austrian roots that could face repercussions for speaking. Kahlmann put an end to the interview with these words which should shock and horrify anyone who reads them:

“For us, holders of green cards, freedom of expression is already practically suspended. Lawyers advise us not to go to demonstrations, and the media tell us to delete all the unavorable messages to Trump from our phones before trying to enter the United States, otherwise we could be put back or even disappear in detention.

“Immediately, I think, can he be bad for me to say something like that The New York Times? Which, I think, proves my point.