We Are Utopia
| Author | Stefan Andres |
|---|---|
| Original title | Wir sind Utopia |
| Translator |
|
| Language | German |
| Publisher | Ulrich Riemerschmidt Verlag |
Publication date | 1942 |
| Publication place | Germany |
Published in English | 1950 |
| Pages | 91 |
We Are Utopia (German: Wir sind Utopia), published as We Are God's Utopia in the United States, is a 1942 novella by the German writer Stefan Andres.
Plot
[edit]The story is set during the Spanish Civil War and takes place in a monastery transformed into a war prison after the monks were killed. One of the prisoners, Paco, had been a monk at the same monastery 20 years earlier, before he was excommunicated and went to work as a sailor. The lieutenant Pedro, who is responsible for having the monks killed and for planning to execute all the prisoners, struggles with guilt and discusses this with Paco, asking him for absolution.[1]
Publication
[edit]The book was published in Germany by Ulrich Riemerschmidt Verlag in 1942, when Stefan Andres lived in exile in Italy with his Jewish wife. Because of his particular situation, Andres has been described as an author who lived in inner emigration abroad.[1] We Are Utopia was published in English in 1950, in a translation by Cyrus Brooks in the United Kingdom[2] and by Elita Walker Caspar, as We Are God's Utopia, in the United States.[3]
Along with the 1936 novella El Greco Paints the Grand Inquisitor, it is Andres' most famous work and became widely read in Germany in the period after World War II.[1] It was adapted into the West German television film Wir sind Utopia, directed by Dagmar Damek and starring Michael König and Alexander Radszun, which premiered on ZDF on 23 February 1987.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Klapper, John (2015). "Stefan Andres: The Christian Humanist Response to Tyranny". Nonconformist Writing in Nazi Germany: The Literature of Inner Emigration. Boydell and Brewer. pp. 143–176. doi:10.1515/9781782045625-009.
- ^ I.E. (1955). "Reviews of We Are Utopia Stefan Andres and Flesh and Blood François Mauriac". Blackfriars. 36 (420): 103–104. JSTOR 43815003.
- ^ Jackson, George (1958). "We Are God's Utopia, by Stefan Andres (Book Review)". Carolina Quarterly. 10 (3). Retrieved 23 November 2024.
- ^ "Wir sind Utopia". Filmportal.de. Retrieved 23 November 2024.
Further reading
[edit]- Cahill, Robert Joseph (1950). Stefan Andres and "Die Ordnung der Welt" (PhD). Boston University. hdl:2144/7821.