Anna Seghers, Transit

Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1948

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

In 1940, the prolific writer Anna Seghers (born Netty Reiling, 1900-1983) was in exile with her two young children in France, while her husband, Laszlo Radvanyi, was interned in a prison camp in Le Vernet. During this turbulent time, Anna Seghers began writing the partially autobiographical novel

Transit

. Like Seghers herself, the novel’s protagonist travels from Paris after the German invasion to the still unoccupied Marseilles, in order to obtain the necessary visas and paperwork for fleeing Europe altogether. To this end, the concentration-camp escapee, who had assumed the name Seidler but whose real name is never revealed to the reader, now takes on yet another identity. On paper he is a writer named Weidel, who, like his real-life model Ernst Weiss, has recently committed suicide.

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1156 words

Citation: Marston William, Jennifer. "Transit". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 April 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16762, accessed 19 April 2024.]

Save this article