The following letter demonstrates the talented ability of Hermann Kesten, the second head of the German language depart of the Allert de Lange publishing house. His responsibilities at the noteworthy “exile“ publishing house notwithstanding, Kesten found time to write his own novels, which were also translated and published abroad. The letter below refers to two of such novels, König Philipp II. and Die Kinder von Guernica. The plot of the first novel is located in Spain, in the late Middle Ages, while the context of the second novel is more timely, namely the bombing of the Spanish town Guernica by the German army in 1937.

The literary agent Carl Ehrenstein, who was an expert in German language translations into English, negotiated between Allert de Lange and the British publisher Routledge, by whom both of Kesten’s novels were eventually published in 1939 (titled I, the King and The Children of Guernica, respectively).

Further reading:
Kerstin Schoor: Verlagsarbeit im Exil. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der deutschen Abteilung des Amsterdamer Allert de Lange Verlages 1933-1940. Amsterdam / Atlanta: Rodopi B.V. , Weest: de Lange 1992
Walter Fähnders / Hendrik Weber (Hrsg.): Dichter – Literat – Emigrant. Über Hermann Kesten. Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag 2006