Novel
The Pious Dance
Der fromme Tanz
Klaus Mann · 1926
Synopsis
In the aftermath of the war, Andreas Magnus, a young painter from a good family who dreamed of depicting God surrounded by a ring of children, leaves his family for Berlin. There he meets Franziska, a young woman with a boyish look, who draws him into the city's bars and shady circles, and then those of Hamburg. He falls in love with Niels, an unstable young man, while Franziska becomes attached to him.
Context
The novel appeared in 1926 in Hamburg, from Enoch, with the subtitle of an adventure book of a youth; its author was nineteen and had just returned from a journey to England, Paris and Tunisia. In publishing it, Klaus Mann publicly affirmed his homosexuality, then repressed by law; the book pleased the public, but part of the critics saw in it only a scandal carried by his father's name. The French translation by Michel-François Demet did not appear until 1993, from Grasset.
Who it is for
A short novel, written at nineteen, in which the characters' desire most often goes unanswered.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first openly homosexual novel in German literature, it caused a scandal when it was published.