The first English translations of two Döblin epics are scheduled for publication in May 2020. I’m pondering how best to prepare the ground for their reception by Anglophone readers likely to know little or nothing about Döblin.
As a preliminary task I’ve collected various essays I’ve translated over the past few years, in which Döblin presents his views on literary creation, the current literary scene in Germany, and his life as both a doctor and a writer.
The 15 items I’ve pulled together can be downloaded here ; they are –
1913: To Novelists and their Critics
1917: Remarks on the Novel
1917-18: Doctor Döblin
1921: The Thirty Years War
1921: The Epicist, his Material, and the Critics
1924: Remarks on Mountains Oceans Giants
1924: The Spirit of a Naturalistic Age
1924: German Conditions, Jewish response
1927: Doctor and Writer
1928: Two Souls in a Single Breast
1929: Construction of the Epic Work
1932: Afterword to Giants
1936: The Historical Novel and Us
1938: Prometheus and the Primitive
1948: Epilogue
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Chris, you are doing justice to Döblin in English way more than anyone else out there. Hope you set your sights on Wadzek or Babylonische Wandrung next!