Alfred Hellmuth Andersch, Sansibar oder der letzte Grund [Flight to Afar]

Aaron Horton (Alabama State University)

Ed. by Jill E. Twark, East Carolina University
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 1957

Places

Germany (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Alfred Andersch’s first and most successful novel, Sansibar oder der letzte Grund (Zanzibar or the Last Reason), features a diverse array of characters whose lives intersect at Rerik, a town on Germany’s Baltic coast, in the fall of 1938. Inspired partly by the author’s ongoing fascination with existentialism and the power of individual decisions to define one’s existence, each character confronts a difficult situation, and the narrative is largely driven by the choices they make in attempting to resolve their problems. The fictional characters face plausible circumstances in pre-World War II Nazi Germany: Gregor is an idealistic young communist working for the underground resistance; Judith is a young Jewish woman …

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1123 words

Citation: Horton, Aaron. "Sansibar oder der letzte Grund". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 March 2015 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35544, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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