Novel
The Other Side
Die andere Seite
Alfred Kubin · 1909
Synopsis
A draughtsman receives a visit from an emissary: a former classmate, Claus Patera, now immensely rich, has founded a dream kingdom in the depths of Asia, built from old European buildings bought up and rebuilt stone by stone, and invites him to settle there with his wife. They leave. In this country, which its master oversees in every detail, their life takes a course they no longer control.
Context
The fifty-two drawings in the book had first been made to illustrate Gustav Meyrink's The Golem: as the manuscript was slow in coming, their author himself wrote, in twelve weeks of the autumn of 1908, a text to match them, though he had never published a novel. The work appeared the following year with Georg Müller in Munich, with a map among its plates. Robert Valançay's French translation appeared in 1962 with Éric Losfeld, then with Jean-Jacques Pauvert.
Who it is for
Three hundred pages accompanied by the author's fifty-two drawings, which are part of the book and not mere ornament. The narrative comes apart as it proceeds, and this is intended.
Prizes and reception
Its author's only novel; Kafka admired it, and the book weighed on Expressionist literature.
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