Three Prose Works: Else Lasker-Schuler

Never before translated into English, this trio of works finds one of the greatest German writers of the 20th century mythologising her own pursuit of freedom in captivatingly original fiction. In The Peter Hille Book (1906), Else Lasker-Schüler offers an elegy for her arch-bohemian mentor. But this hypnotic blend of Nietzsche, fairy tale and paganism also celebrates the one Hille called ‘Tino’ – the author herself – and the electrifying uncertainties of the creative life. In the 1907 text The Nights of Tino of Baghdad she sends her alter ego on a heady voyage through an imagined ‘Orient’. From the banks of the Nile the narrative advances across a wide emotional landscape, using Muslim and Jewish motifs to explore the commonalities of Semitic identity. Finally, Lasker-Schüler’s avatar encounters dervishes, biblical figures and a 20-year-old foetus in The Prince of Thebes. Issued on the eve of World War One, this sequence of dark fables seethes with violence and eroticism, culminating in a great clash of civilisations in which Tino leads the charge. An insightful afterword details the genesis of these Three Prose Works in the context of the author’s tumultuous life.