Else Lasker-Schuler: A Life
- Book Review,
by Betty Falkenberg
Book Description
Else Lasker-Schüler, a pivotal figure in German Expressionism, presided over avant-garde café life in pre–World War I Berlin in much the same way Gertrude Stein did in Paris around the same time. While her work is not yet very well known in the English–speaking world, it has been enjoying a critical and popular revival in Germany. This full-length biography of Lasker-Schüler—the first in English—explores her poems, plays, prose and graphic works in light of her life. It begins with her fleeing to Switzerland after Hitler’s accession to power in 1933, looks back at her childhood in Wuppertal, then follows her life through to its end in Jerusalem in January 1945. As a Jew, a woman and a bohemian, Lasker-Schüler defied every category. Her two marriages—first to Dr. Berthold Lasker, then to Herwarth Walden, founder of the leading avant-garde periodical, gallery and publishing house, Der Sturm (The Storm)—as well as her interactions with Karl Kraus, Franz Marc, Gottfried Benn, Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem, are documented in letters and poems, many included here both in the original and in translation.
About the Author
Betty Falkenberg has contributed many articles to German encyclopedias and books. She was a longtime correspondent of the International Herald Tribune, Partisan Review and The New Leader, and is a member of the Biography Seminar of New York University. She lives in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
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