Overview

The volume contains the first, and only, English translation of Richard Bermann's Ireland, produced by Dr Leesa Wheatley, a professional translator and author of a major study on German travel writing on Ireland since 1780, and Professor Florian Krobb, School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Maynooth University, who counts amongst his specialisms the writings of Richard Arnold Bermann (1883-1939), one of the most prominent and the most travelled of journalists of the first decades of the 20th century. This translation is complemented by comprehensive notes and explanations, an introduction and a list of Further Reading. The volume constitutes a unique source on Ireland immediately before World War I; it places Irish conflicts in international Imperialist scenarios, displays the sensitivities of an Austrian Jew working from Berlin on nationhood, federalism, diversity of (religious and political) cultures; it affords an insight into Irish culture and society that is astute, entertaining, diverse, informed and independent. Many of the author's impressions on political movements, cultural displays and national characters still, and in a truly astounding way, resonate today.

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9781782054351

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Richard Arnold Bermann (1883-1839), who also wrote under his nom de plume Arnold Hoellriegel, was between the 1910s and 1930s one of the leading journalists and travel writers in German. Born in Vienna, he moved to Berlin in his early 20s to write for the Berliner Tageblatt and later for several other leading German and Austrian papers. His travels led him all over the world; amongst other things, he reported widely on Holywood's film industry and became friends with Charley Chaplin; he also accompanied Count Ladislaus Almasy, immortalized as 'The English Patient' in the eponymous novel and film, on one of his Sahara expeditions. His report on Ireland was the first of his many travel writings that appeared as a book. A liberal, and born to Jewish parents, he had to emigrate to the USA after the German annexation of Austria in 1938. He died during a stay in the artists' sanatorium Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY. Leesa Wheatley is a translator and author. Based on her PhD research, her book Forging Ireland: German travel writing from 1785-1850 (Trier 2018) explores various constructions of Ireland and 'Irishness' in German-language travel narratives of the period. She has also written various articles on the same subject for history journals and magazines. She has been working as a professional translator for many years now, translating literary, academic and commercial texts from German to English. Florian Krobb is Professor of German at Maynooth University, Republic of Ireland, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Having published widely on the German discourse of Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, he has also written on Richard Bermann and re-edited his trenchant biography of the Sudanese Mahdi, Die Derwischtrommel (Berlin 2019) (first published 1929; in English as The Mahdi of Allah: The Story of the Dervish Mohammed Ahmed, with an introduction by Winston Churchill, 1931).

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