KARL MAY

'Karl Friedrich May' (Ernstthal, Electorate of Saxony, February 25, 1842 - Radebeul, Kingdom of Saxony, March 30, 1912) was one of the the best selling German writers of all time, noted chiefly for wild west books set in the American West and similar books set in the Orient and Middle East; in addition, he also wrote stories set in his native Germany. China and South America also became the objects of his stories. Karl May also wrote poetry, and several plays. His autobiography is important for any serious study of his life. May also composed music, being very proficient with several musical instruments. Karl May's musical version of "Ave Maria" became very well known.

Contents

Life and career

Filmed works

Karl May festivals

See also

Literature

External links and references

Life and career

May was born into a family of poor weavers and - according to his autobiography - suffered from visual impairment and rickets shortly after birth, due to lack of vitamins A and D. He regained his eyesight at the age four or five. Karl May finished a Teacher's College and became a teacher in Waldenburg and Plauen (Saxony). Teaching was not paid well and held low social prestige in this time and place. His short career as a teacher ended abruptly due to an accusation of theft of a pocket watch by his flatmate in 1863, which May himself always claimed was a false accusation. He permanently lost his licence to teach and as a consequence suffered a nervous breakdown. In the following years he was accused of wrongdoings whilst suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, and was twice jailed for matters which nowadays would not result in imprisonment.
During the years in prison May began writing, but he remained commercially unsuccessful for a long time. In 1875 he published his first story. Not until 1892, when 'Winnetou I' appeared in a book edition, did he achieve success with his writing, eventually becoming very popular. Many of his books are written as first-person accounts by the narrator-protagonist, and he sometimes claimed that he actually experienced the events he described.
He used many different pen names, including Capitan Ramon Diaz de la Escosura, M. Gisela, Hobble-Frank, Karl Hohenthal, D. Jam, Prinz Muhamel Lautréamont, Ernst von Linden, P. van der Löwen, Emma Pollmer (the actual name of his first wife; according to May, she was never aware of the purpose or content of his writing), Franz Langer. Today his works are all published under his own name.
Whether he visited the USA as a young man is still uncertain. He certainly visited North America in 1908, long after writing the books set there, never travelling west of Buffalo, New York. He successfully compensated for this lack of direct experience of the Western ''milieu'' by an ingenious combination of creativity, imagination, and factual sources including maps, travel accounts and guide books, as well as anthropological and linguistic studies.
Non-dogmatic Christian feelings and values play an important role, and his heroes are often described as being of German descent. In addition, following the Romantic ideal of the "noble savage", and inspired by the writings of James Fenimore Cooper, his Native Americans are generally portrayed as innocent victims of white law-breakers, and many are presented as heroic characters. In his later works, there is a strong element of mysticism, inspired by his grandmother Marah Durimeh.
In the books set in America, May described the characters of Winnetou, the wise chief of the Apache Tribe, and Old Shatterhand, the author's alter ego and Winnetou's white blood brother. Another successful series of books is set in the Orient Ottoman Empire. Here the narrator-protagonist calls himself Kara Ben Nemsi, i.e., Karl, son of Germany, and travels with his local guide and servant Hadschi Halef Omar through the Sahara desert and the Near East, all the while experiencing many exciting adventures. Both series of books are linked not only by the common narrator, the author himself as either Old Shatterhand or Kara Ben Nemsi, but also by numerous other references and shared minor characters.
May's works were immensely successful, particularly in continental Europe, and have been translated into more than thirty different languages including Hebrew, Latin, Volapük, and Esperanto. More than 200 million copies of May's books have been sold worldwide. Recently his work became known in the English-speaking world, mainly through the efforts of translators such as Marlies Bugmann from Tasmania, Australia, a widely known artist and writer of children's adventure books, who set as her goal to translate all of Karl May's enormous literary output into the English language within five years. Several of his novels were made in the 1960's into sixteen film movies, usually with the scenery of the former Yugoslavia doubling for the Wild West.
May had famous admirers, Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Mann, Karl Liebknecht, Bertha von Suttner. German author Carl Zuckmayer even named his daughter after the character "Winnetou" (although Winnetou is a male name in the book, it is a female name in reality). For a long time, literary critics tended to regard May's books as trivial. The Karl May Society (Karl-May-Gesellschaft) was founded in 1969 to study his life and works.
May's house in Radebeul near Dresden in Germany has been turned into a museum devoted to Karl May and his anthropological collection of artifacts of native American Indian origin.

Filmed works

Main articles: Karl May movies

Between 1912 and 1968 German cinema produced 23 movies made after novels by Karl May, most of them only loosely connected to the stories of the respective novels. In thirteen of these movies American actor Lex Barker starred either as ''Old Shatterhand'' or as ''Kara Ben Nemsi'' or as ''Doctor Sternau''. Three movies have seen British actor Stewart Granger in the leading role as ''Old Surehand'' and one movie starred American actor Rod Cameron as ''Old Firehand''. At the time of writing, Karl May considered the prefix "Old" to the names of several of his heroes as illustrating the great experience of the heroes. Eleven movies featured French actor Pierre Brice as the fictional Apache chief "Winnetou".
The music for the movie "Der Schatz im Silbersee" (The Treasure of Silver Lake) (1962), composed by German Martin Böttcher, was a landmark in German film music. It was one ingredient of the great success of the Karl May movies of the 1960s. The success of these movies made possible the later so called Spaghetti Western from Italy (with the famous compositions of Ennio Morricone). The star of some of the Spaghetti Westerns, Terence Hill, began his career in the German Karl May movies.
The 1960s Karl May films are typical popular productions of the time, and have not aged as well as the Italian westerns from the same time period. Most of them were shot in former Yugoslavia, some in Spain, none in America. May himself is the subject of a 1974 film by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg.

★ Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses (1920), silent movie

★ Die Todeskarawane (1920), silent movie

★ Die Teufelsanbeter (1921), silent movie

★ Durch die Wüste (1936), first May talkie

★ Die Sklavenkarawane (1958), first May color film

★ Der Löwe von Babylon (1959)

★ Der Schatz im Silbersee (1962)

★ Winnetou 1. Teil (1963)

★ Old Shatterhand (1964)

★ Der Schut (1964)

★ Winnetou 2. Teil (1964)

★ Unter Geiern (1964)

★ Der Schatz der Azteken (1965)

★ Die Pyramide des Sonnengottes (1965)

★ Der Ölprinz (1965)

★ Durchs wilde Kurdistan (1965)

★ Winnetou 3. Teil (1965)

★ Old Surehand 1. Teil (1965)

★ Im Reiche des silbernen Löwen (1965)

★ Das Vermächtnis des Inka (1965)

★ Winnetou und das Halbblut Apanatschi (1966)

★ Winnetou und sein Freund Old Firehand (1966)

★ Winnetou und Shatterhand im Tal der Toten (1968)

Karl May festivals

The most famous Karl May festivals are the open air festivals held every summer in Bad Segeberg, Schleswig-Holstein (Northern Germany) and in Lennestadt-Elspe(Western Germany), where for ten years movie actor Pierre Brice played his Winnetou character in a live version. Another open air Karl May stage is in Rathen (Eastern Germany) near the village of Radebeul, where May lived.

See also

★ Zane Grey

★ B. Traven

★ Emilio Salgari

Literature

★ Hans Wollschläger: ''Karl May. Grundriß eines gebrochenen Lebens'' (1965, 1976, 2004) [in German].

External links and references

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★ Karl May Verlag, Bamberg-Radebeul
'Karl May's Works in English:'

★ Nemsi Books (Publisher of new unabridged English translations of Karl May's works)

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★ Karl May Gesellschaft - English Homepage

★ ''Winnetou, The Apache Knight'' Diggory Press ISBN 978-1846856976

★ ''Winnetou, The Treasure of Nugget Mountain'' Diggory Press, ISBN 978-1846856976
'Other English Language Websites:'

★ Karl May Links

★ First English language Karl May forum
'German Language Websites:'

★ Karl May Gesellschaft e.V. (Karl May Society - registered) (free texts)

★ Karl-May-Museum in Radebeul

★ Karl-May-Wiki

★ Karl May & Co - Magazine-pages with diskussion-board

★ 43 free ebooks by Karl May
'Other Karl May websites:'

★ Indonesian Karl May Society (mainly in Indonesian language, some articles in English)

★ A wiki about Karl May (in Indonesian language), a wiki project in progress
'Compositions by Karl May:'

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