| Tentang Karl May |
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Karl May (1842-1912) Best-Selling German Author of All Time His story is a model for the struggle against adversity. Born into a dirt-poor family in 1842, little Karl May
(pronounced MYE) was blind until age five. As a young man in Saxony he
lost his teaching job and spent over seven years in jail for theft. His
works were edited, corrupted and misused by others against his wishes.
Even long after his death May had to suffer the indignity of Hitler
praising his works (but Albert Einstein and Hermann Hesse praised May
also). Most serious German literary critics dismiss his work as
second-rate. He never set foot in most of the places he so vividly
described in his numerous adventure tales, including the American West,
the home of his best-known fictional character, the Apache warrior
Winnetou.  Villa Bärenfett on the grounds of the Karl May Museum in Radebeul. Foto: Hyde Flippo Yet
it is Karl May—not Goethe, not Thomas Mann—who has become the
best-selling German author of all time! The Karl May Verlag (press) in
Bamberg claims over 100 million copies sold worldwide, and there's
hardly an adult German male alive today who didn't read Karl May's
books as a youngster.
Every summer there are popular Karl May festivals and outdoor
pageants across Germany and Austria. For good or bad, the German image
of the American Indian is largely based on the books of Karl May (and
German films based on those books). May was a prolific writer who
churned out over 80 novels and stories, most of them "travel
adventures" (Reiseerzählungen) set in faraway locales such as
the Wild West. But the German Louis L'Amour is virtually unknown in
America and the rest of the English-speaking world. May and his wife visited Niagara Falls in 1908, after he wrote his westerns. This is part of an exhibit in Villa Shatterhand, May's former home near Dresden, today a museum. Foto: Hyde Flippo That may be slowly changing. In April 2001 the Wall Street Journal
reported on several Karl May symposia and exhibits in the United
States. A May exhibit went on tour in Arizona, and Texas Tech professor
Meredith McClain is working on a new book about the German writer. David Koblick's modern English translation of one of May's most famous novels, Winnetou I, was published by the Washington State University Press in 1999, and Michael Michalak's English translation of May's Arabian adventure Durch die Wüste appeared in 2001. (See our Karl May Links page for book and other Web links in German and English.) The American actor Lex Barker
made Tarzan and other films, but in Germany he is best known for his
role as "Old Shatterhand" in several Italian-German "spaghetti
westerns" of the 1960s (filmed in former Yugoslavia and only loosely
based on Karl May's books). Barker's American English was dubbed into
German, and the role of the Indian Winnetou was played by a Frenchman,
actor Pierre Brice. Even 40 years later there are German Pierre
Brice/Winnetou fan sites on the Web! (Brice only gave up playing
Winnetou in open-air pageants in 1991.) Some of the old classic films
starring Barker and Brice were recently released on DVD and VHS video. May
endured many hardships and setbacks during his later years. His
criminal record came back to haunt him when he went to court in an
attempt to keep his own publishing rights and prevent the unauthorized
serialization and alteration of his novels. But he persevered. Only
eight days before his death in 1912, May presented a lecture in Vienna
about his life and work to an enthusiastic audience of 2000 fans. May's birthplace home (Geburtshaus)
in Hohenstein-Ernstthal was renovated in 1998 and is now a museum
visited by devoted fans from all over Europe. His former residence in
Radebeul, the "Villa Shatterhand" just outside of Dresden, is also a
museum that attracts Karl May fans of all ages. |
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