Karl May

Winnetou of Karl May (1905). Cover illustrated by Sascha Schneider.

Karl May (February 25, 1842, Ernstthal - March 30, 1912, Dresden) was a German writer. He is particularly remembered for his fictional travel and adventure novels of the 19th century, set in the American Old West with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand as protagonists, and in the East and Middle East with the fictional characters Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar.

May also wrote novels set in Latin America, China, and Germany, poetry, a play, and composed music; he was an expert performer of various musical instruments. Many of his works were adapted to the cinema, the theater, radio soap operas and comics. Later in his career, May turned to the philosophical and spiritual genres. He is one of the best-selling German writers of all time, with some 200,000,000 copies sold worldwide.

Biography

Karl May Funeral Monument.

He was born in Hohenstein-Ernstthal, Germany. He was the fifth of fourteen children in a family of weavers. He went blind shortly after birth and did not recover his vision until he was five years old, after undergoing surgery. During these years of blindness, a deep and impressive inner world was formed in the child, fueled by the stories of his godfather and his grandfather.

In 1861 he obtained the title of teacher, but he practiced the profession for a short time. Accused of having stolen a watch, he ended up in jail and his license to teach was withdrawn. For a few years, crimes against property and punishments in prison followed one another, where he discovered the redemptive possibilities of writing.

In 1875 May began to collaborate in some newspapers. Four years later, in 1879, he went to work as a regular contributor to a magazine dedicated to the family, where he wrote a series of articles on the Orient. From this moment he was assured of a way of earning a living that, little by little, turned him into a respectable bourgeois.

His novels achieved enormous success among the German public and he became a very popular author. Many of the original covers of his works were done by the painter and illustrator Sascha Schneider.

General characteristics of his work

His adventure novels, aimed at a young audience, have been continuously reissued since they were first published during the author's lifetime. We could say that May represents for the Germans what Verne for the French or Salgari for the Italians.

Thematically, Karl May's books, all written in the first person, are set primarily in two geographic settings: the American West and the Near East. Western novels feature Old Shatterhand and his friend, the Apache Indian Winnetou. Those that are located in the East are starring Kara ben Nemsi and his friend Halef Omar.

Between 1882 and 1887, five serialized novels appeared.

Later, he wrote seven books for young people for the magazine El buen comrade, which were very successful.

Villa Shatterhand in Radebeul.

Most of May's works were compiled from earlier writings published in newspapers and magazines. Proof of his success is the founding in 1969 of the & # 34; Karl May & # 34; based in Hamburg, and the existence in Radebeul, near Dresden, of a museum in what was his last home. It is called "Villa Shatterhand", meaning "Finca Shatterhand". Another museum is located at his birthplace in Hohenstein-Ernstthal.

Reception of his work in Spain

In Spain, Karl May's novels began to be published in 1927, in an edition by Gustavo Gili. Later, in the 1930s, Editorial Molino, specialized in adventure novels, acquired the rights to the Spanish edition and began to publish the first titles, some of which appeared during the civil war. Part of the Molino family, owners of the publishing house, went into exile in Argentina, where new May titles appeared.

In Spain, the editions of the 1940s achieved notable success, like those of the 1950s. The collection that appeared during the 1960s, on the other hand, began to show the decline that May's readings will have between young people, compared to other authors, in the style of Enid Blyton. In Raymond Cartier's biography of Adolf Hitler "Hitler's assault on power" (Argos Vergara, Barcelona, Spain, 1978. 371 pages, See page 17) it is mentioned that Adolf Hitler in his childhood was a passionate reader of Karl May, especially his works on the American West, "in which he had learned that impassivity in the face of pain is the pride of the strong" Cartier writes.

Works

In Editorial Gustavo Gili, between 1927-1929: