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Article: Hermann Kesten: Obituary
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- May 8, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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National literatures are peppered with so-called living
monuments, last surviving rep- resentatives of this and that, often
more dreamed up than verifiable. It is, however, difficult to avoid
the conclusion that, with the death of Hermann Kesten, an entire
chapter of German literary history really has closed. And not only
literary history - Kesten's presence at the points where literature
and politics met or, more often, collided derived from his own
clear sense that literature needed to be not only written but also
promoted, organised and protected.
Kesten was born in Nuremberg in 1900, son of a Jewish merchant.
In the early 1920s, while a student in Frankfurt, he was already
writing plays ...