Novel
Philomena Ellenhub
Not translated into English
Johannes Freumbichler · 1937
Synopsis
In the Salzburg region, Philomena Ellenhub, known as Mena, grows up in a peasant family whose brothers and sisters gradually scatter. The narrative no longer leaves her: through labour, bereavements and blows of fate, this woman of character follows her own path, upright and obstinate, in a rural world where a woman rarely plays the leading role.
Context
The author had been working on it since the early twenties and the manuscript ran to nearly a thousand pages. His partner sent it, without his knowledge, to Carl Zuckmayer, who lived nearby; he hesitated, then grew enthusiastic, and his wife Alice Herdan thoroughly reworked the text, cut by half. Zsolnay published it in Vienna in 1937, in three thousand copies, and it was the first real success of a man of fifty-six. The novel was reissued by Insel in 2009.
Who it is for
Nearly six hundred pages in the current edition, and that is already a version cut by half. No plot hurries the narrative, which follows the calendar of the farm.
Prizes and reception
Encouragement prize of the Austrian State Grand Prize for Literature in 1937, the very year of its publication.
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