By Gert Niers

Gabrielle Alioth and Hans-Christian Oeser, editors.  Nachgetragenes. 75 Jahre PEN-Zentrum deutschsprachiger Autoren im Ausland. Heidelberg: Synchron Publishers. 254 pages. € 29,80. order@synchron-publishers.com


An unusual collection of writings in German has just come off the press under the title Nachgetragenes. It is an anthology published on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the famous German Exile PEN, i.e. the centre of Poets, Essayists, and Novelists that chose to leave Nazi Germany and Nazi literature to establish itself abroad.

At the end of 1933, Rudolf Olden, Lion Feuchtwanger, Ernst Toller, and Max Herrmann-Neiße requested of the International PEN that they be able to establish a center for German authors in exile.  At the convention in Glasgow in 1934, the German Exile PEN was founded. For the first time the International PEN admitted a centre of authors who had been forced into exile by the regime that took over their homeland. The first president of the German Exile PEN was Heinrich Mann, elder brother of Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann who joined later. Rudolf Olden became secretary.

All leading authors of 20th century German literature were members of the Exile PEN, among them, in addition to those mentioned above, Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Oskar Maria-Graf, Anna Seghers, and many more. The organization consisted of more than 70 members in 1938. The name PEN Centre of German-speaking Writers Abroad was introduced in 1948, when the immediate exile situation was no longer as pressing, but when a return to the former homeland had not presented itself as an alternative either.

The new anthology contains a cross-section of the writings of today’s members, among them authors from the former German Democratic Republic – obviously another generation of émigrés. One of them is Günter Kunert (photo, courtesy Fred Viebahn), the current president of this PEN centre. One can divide the various genres of this anthology into fiction (creative writing, including poetry) and non-fiction (political and literary essay, historic commentary, autobiographic prose).

The book title Nachgetragenes should be understood as different forms of an addendum – a collection of various forms of writing and thinking. It is a play on words based on the German verb tragen (to carry) and nach (after).  The author carries his/her offerings after many other literary contributions have been made. The different chapters of the volume reflect the same verb with other prefixes.

Of the 36 contributors to this volume, eight live in the United States (one of them deceased meanwhile). That means that this country still qualifies as the place of residence for authors using the German language for their literary endeavors – a noteworthy phenomenon if one takes into consideration that the United States was of special importance in granting a haven to the early members of this PEN centre. 

A German reader can probably gain new insights from German literature produced outside the territory where German is the established language. The volume Nachgetragenes carries the weight of the German past and present.  And last, but not least, the perception gained from outside may very well count as yet another contribution to multiculturalism and diversity.