From 1922 until his death in 1957, Döblin considered Yolla Niclas his “soul-mate”. The relationship was kept secret until Alfred’s friend (and insightful critic of his work) Robert Minder published an account of Alfred’s confidential confessions from his sickbed. One of Alfred’s sons sued Minder for invasion of privacy; and the scholarly world has generally shied away form any detailed study of the impact of the liaison on the lives of those concerned (including Alfred’s wife Erna), and on the writer’s creativity.
Podcast S2 Ep6 : Secret Life
Our latest podcast episode is now available, along with the transcript. Here we delve into the decades-long liaison between Alfred Döblin and Yolla Niclas – an aspect of Döblin’s life which even now is rather studiously avoided by the lit crit industry.
This episode has been delayed, first because we took a summer break (during the best English summer for several years!) and then because of gremlins in the interwebs aether. (Katie and I are 40 miles apart.)
We had to abandon our first attempt to record this, because the internet connection kept breaking down. The second attempt was also beset with video glitches that required numerous stops and starts. It was not easy to splice the episode together so that the audio and video are fully in sync – so, many thanks to Katie for her expert producer skills!
I’m not superstitious (ahem!) but I sometimes wonder if someone, somewhere, somewhen, even now does not want the Alfred-Yolla story to be told?
We’ve now created 16 episodes covering Döblin’s life and works, making accessible to everyday readers of English (as distinct from PhD students etc) a rich store of background information to enhance the experience of reading any of his remarkable (and somewhat challenging) epic novels, most of which have appeared for the first time in English only because of the efforts of this website!
And Döblin is just one of many early 20th century writers in German who suffered decades-long neglect following the awful hiatus of 1933-45. So the mission of this website has broadened to cover other significant works that merit rediscovery – by the Germans Paul Gurk and Wilhelm Speyer, and the Austrians Günther Anders, Robert Müller and Leo Perutz. Check out The Bookshelf posted here a few months ago!
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