Egon Erwin Kisch

1
Egon Erwin Kisch

• The Raging Reporter

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Background

• World War I (19141918) Austria, Hungry and Italy
  (Triple Alliance) vs. Britain, France and Russia
  (Triple Entent). Ended with the defeat of Triple
  Alliance. Democratic movements flourished in
  Russia, Hungry and Germany

• World War II (19391945) China, Soviet Union, The
  United States and Britain vs. Germany, Italy and
  Japan. The war spread to Europe, Africa and Asia
  Pacific. Ended with the defeat of Germany, Italy
  and Japan. Colonialism broke up. Eastern and
  Western Europe formed separate spheres of
  influence.

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Highlights

• Reportage writer sticking to
• reality and also a communist.
• Restless in reporting but firm in his belief.
• Extremely interested in crime and the underworld.
• Universally recognized as the founder of
  reportageXie Yong, a Chinese critic.

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Biography
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On the threshold of life

• 1885, April 29th, Egon Erwin Kisch was born the
  son of a German-Jewish cloth merchant in Prague.
• First language was German and cultural
  identification was wholly German. But privately
  learned Czech.
• Influenced by his father who liked reading and
  writing.

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On the threshold of life

• 19031904
• Educated in German-language schools in Prague.
  Gained his pen name, Erwin Kisch.
• Studied literature and philosophy in German
  Prague University. Left his studies after a
  semester to volunteer for military service.
• Showed his discomfort with authorityof the 365
  days in service, 147 were spent in the brig (or
  jail).
• 1906
• Briefly attended a private German
  journalism-training school in Berlin.

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A local reporter in Prague

• 19061913
• Joined the staff of the Bohemia, Pragues second
  largest German-language paper. Reported on crime.
  From this experience, he developed an uncanny
  ability to ferret out the quirky and the offbeat.
• Immersed himself into what he reported.
• Showed an undeniable taste for the sensational.
• Yet, for himthe Prague underworld was never
  the source of only cheap sensations to titillate
  the reader. It was his deep study of real life
  and the social causes of phenomena, which taught
  him how to assess reality from class
  positions.Danica Kozlov

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Reporter and Fighter

• 1914
• World War I broke out. Kisch joined the army
  and went to the Serbian front.
• Wanted to experience the reality of war
  directly and not as someone who observes from a
  safe distance and enters the trenches after the
  action is over according to his diary on July
  31, 1914
• 19171919
• He was active in anti-war activities. Joined the
  Communist Party in Austria, later in Germany.  

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Reporter and Fighter

• 19201938
• Traveled through Europe, North Africa, Soviet
  Union, United States, and China (1932).
• Arrested by Nazis and sent back to Prague. The
  Secret China was burned by Nazis
• Kept on traveling, or as he said, exiling.
• Went to Melbourne (1937, Australia), suffered a
  leg injury and made a famous speech -- Yes my
  English is broken, my leg is broken, but my heart
  is unbroken.

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Reporter and Fighter

• The places he had been -- all over the world.

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Reporter and Fighter

• 1938, October
• At the age of 48, married Gisela Lyner, his
  devoted assistant, in Versailles (in northern
  France).
• 1939
• Fled from Paris to Mexico.

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At Home

• 1946
• Kisch returned to Prague. Now in his 60s, he
  plunged into coverage of Nazi war-crimes trials,
  the May Day celebration and his book on the new
  Czechoslovakia.
• 1948, March 31st
• Egon Erwin Kisch died of a heart attack in
  Prague.

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Works
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Works

• Reported on and wrote about everywhere he went,
  mostly focusing on people struggling to cope with
  everyday life. And, of course, lots of his
  stories are about crime and punishment.
• The Pimp, 1912, first novel and the one that
  survives most.
• The Rampaging reporter, 1924, from which he got
  his occasional nickname, The Raging Reporter.
• The Secret China, 1932, burned by Nazis before
  publication.
• Sensation Fair, 1942, closest he got to an
  autobiography.

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Qualities of his work
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Qualities of his work

• A superficial reading of Kischs stories would
  make it seem that it is light reading,
  journalistically facile, casual, even with a
  piquant flavor. But nothing could be more unjust.
  It is bitter at strong reading which did not
  originate in comfort but required tremendously
  difficult reporting work.Antonin Macek, a Czech
  poet
• In Kischs journalistic sketches, everything has
  taken, willy-nilly, a degrading appearance, as if
  there was nothing else in Prague but women of ill
  repute, seedy, lost proletarians, the pitiful
  phenomena of moral and physical
  wretchedness.how bourgeois literary criticism
  reacted to Kischs work

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Qualities of his work

• Excerpt from the prologue to Journalist and
  Fighter
• A reporters work is of the utmost importance
  because every subject requires a thorough studyA
  reporter may exaggerate and provide unreliable
  information, but in spite of this, he always
  depends on reality, on concrete factsof course,
  reality is only a compass on every journey, but
  he also needs a telescope logical fantasy.
• LOGICAL FANTASY Connecting all phases of
  events. Determining the intermediate points (the
  key moments). Choosing the right colors and
  perspectives. All to create an accusing work of
  art (objective partiality).

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Qualities of his work

• He explained He (the reporter) can treat it (the
  subject) with brilliant expertise and overlay it
  with appropriate quotations. But quotations are
  drawn from publications, hence are secondhand.
  The findings of investigation are firsthand
  because they are drawn from life itself. To be
  sure, reality is only a compass on every journey,
  but he also needs a telescope logical
  fantasyThe ideal is for this curve of
  credibility, drawn by the reporter, to conform to
  the actual connecting line between all phases of
  events a harmonious course and determination of
  the largest possible number of intermediate
  points can be achieved and must be sought. In
  this, the reporter differs from all other
  journalists

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His view of literature
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His view of literature

• Nothing overwhelms us as much as pure truth,
  nothing is more exotic than the world around us,
  nothing is more fantastic than reality. And
  nothing is more sensational than the times in
  which we live.-- Egon Erwin Kisch
• Fiction genres were obsolete and should be
  replaced by the literature of fact. People and
  life are supreme the literature of fact must
  serve them and their awareness.
• Kischs comment should be viewed in the context
  of his times. The turmoil of his era lay behind
  such sweeping statements.

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The Secret China
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Background

• 1932, arrived in China
• illegally
• with a German and an American journalist
• amid a chaotic landscapeWestern powers, civil
  war (Kuomintang and the Communist Party), and
  Japanese invasion.

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The Book

• It was the last he was able to publish in
  Germany.
• Translated into Chinese by Zhou Libo, and
  published in China in 1938.
• Colonial exploitation of China is main theme.
• Yet, he avoided the overtly political.
  Interweaved Chinese legend, history and culture
  into the stories.
• Major influence on Chinas tradition of Bao Gao
  Wen Xue (literary reporting) and such writers as
  Liu Binyan.

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Sample stories I

• The Execution and The Funeral

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What they are about

• The Execution
• Begins with a flash-forward.
• Uses figures of speech (see simile at top of page
  271 His hips swaying, he glided along like a
  ghost
• Uses multiple voices, multiple points of view.
  Sometimes he is a third-person narrator,
  sometimes a first-person. At one point, addresses
  the executed man as you and tells how the
  bullet entered the back of your head,
• He uses the executed man, innocent passers-by,
  the secondhand bookstore to show the temper of
  the times, and how some obeyed and some rebelled.
• Dialogue between the police and the author --
  used to show Western exploitation of China --
  from material things (Henry Ford) to spirit
  (baptism, medal of Virgin Mary)

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What they are about

• The Funeral
• Uses the detail and the motion of a funeral
  ceremony to talk about Chinese secret societies
  and their relations with colonial powers and to
  take you through the story.
• Uses past tense for the event of funeral and the
  present tense for the introduction of the
  underworldindicating that it is a phenomenon at
  that time.

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Why put them together they reflect
situation in China at the time

• About death, dead men, fated men
• The Execution Under the national and
  international powers, the ordinary Chinese people
  are fated to be governed and exploited.
• Yet, in The Funeral the bad men of the
  underworld will eventually bury themselves.
•  
• About power and corruption in Shanghai at the
  time (governed by underground and foreign
  powers).

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Things I like

• Powerful and poetic endings that hit the theme
  again.
• They may show themselves publicly with pride,
  with horsemen and with bands, when it is a matter
  of burying one of themselves.(The Funeral)
• Now, alive, he drives in front of me, runs
  past me, sits at the street corner, always the
  only living person his blood shoots up, his body
  struggles, his eyes are wide open, his face
  turned red. (The Execution)
• Irony especially striking in The Funeral
• But against his cancer of the stomach this
  society could afford him no protection.
• Chinese gentlemen, the worthy crooks
• How can those damned Chinks dare delayed the
  fulfillment of their responsibility (The
  Execution)

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Things I like

• Contrastingsharp and soft
• Sharp Sacristan opens the door of the small
  car for the barrel-bellied priest and a policeman
  opens that of the big one for the spindly-thin
  corpse at precisely the same moment the priest
  and the dead man get out. Figures in the darkness
  walk in the light of the sun. (The Execution)
• Soft Mr Mhas had ample experience of
  magistrate and police and prison and no
  respectable person will have anything to do with
  him. Nevertheless he rejected contemptuously the
  invitation to embellish the obsequies of this
  Chinese gentleman by simply walking behind the
  coffin. (The Funeral)
• Artfully presentingfilm techniques
• The end of The Execution

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Discussion

• The impact of using You in describing how the man
  is killed (The Execution). The author is directly
  speaking to his character. It pulls us more into
  the story.
• Similarities of reportage and literary journalism
• (comparing it with The Death of Henry
  Spencer and The Death of Rodriguez)

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Sample stories II

• Shadow Play

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Shadow Play

• It belongs to another series of stories in
  this book, stories about Chinese tradition and
  culture.

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Get to know the shadow play
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Get to know the shadow play

• Originally made by paper, later by animal hide.
• Popular in Song Dynasty (about 1000 years ago).
  In about 13th to 15th centaury, introduced to
  Europe and America. Declined after Qing Dynasty
  (after 1911).
• The puppet is about 30cm high, mostly appearing
  as a profile.
• Manipulated by three sticks, one connecting the
  neck, the other two, two hands.

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Qualities of the story

• The technique of presenting the superb skills of
  shadow playerindirect description.
• Using sagas (3-11 paragraphs)the Emperors
  reaction.
• Using scenes to illustrate the unbelievable
  skills (3-5 paragraphs on the second page).
• Contrasting lively creatures thickly occupying
  the earth and the sky -- yet a solitary man is
  makes it all work (the end of the second page,
  beginning of the third page).
• Close-up of the performer to the panorama of the
  whole society Even here the money and snobbery
  of the foreign colonial lords cast their shadow
  that they have bought up even Chinese shadow. Her
  beautiful, painted, nimble, shadow (powerful end
  again!).

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Especially Thank

• Gene
• Sunhong
• All of you
• By Li Jie
• 2002,Sep
• for Literary Journalism