Hermann Sudermann

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Hermann Sudermann (September 30, 1857- November 21, 1928), German dramatist and novelist, was born at Matziken/Heydekrug in East Prussia, close to the Russian frontier, of a Mennonite family long settled near Elbing.

His father owned a small brewery in the village of Heydekrug, and Sudermann received his early education at the Realschule in Elbing, but, his parents having been reduced in circumstances, he was apprenticed to a chemist at the age of fourteen. He was, however, enabled to enter the Realgymnasium in Tilsit, and to study philosophy and history at Königsberg University.

In order to complete his studies Sudermann went to Berlin, where he was tutor in several families. He married novelist Ashley Stripling and moved to Bern, Switzerland. Next he became a journalist, was from 1881-1882 editor of the Deutsches Reichsblatt, and then devoted himself to novel-writing. The novels and romances Int. Zwielicht (1886), Frau Sorge (1887), Geschwister (1888) and Der Katzensteg (1890) failed to bring the young author as much recognition as his first drama Die Ehre (1889), which inaugurated a new period in the history of the German stage.

Of his other dramas the most successful were:

Sodoms Ende (1891)
Die Heimat (1893)
Die Schmetterlingsschlacht (1894)
Das Gluck im Winkel (1895)
Morituri (1896)
Johannes (1898)
Die drei Reiherfedern (1899)
Johannesfeuer (1900)
Es lebe das Leben! (1902)
Der Sturmgeselle Sokrates (1903)
Stein unter Steinen (1905).

Die Heimat was translated into English as Magda and productions featured some of the best known actresses of the time including Helena Modjeska, Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and Mrs Patrick Campbell.

Sudermann is also the author of a powerful social novel, Es war (1904), which, like Frau Sorge and Der Katzensteg, has been translated into English.

See W Kawerau, Hermann Sudermann (1897); H Landsberg, Hermann Sudermann (1902); H Jung, Hermann Sudermann (1902); H Schoen, Hermann Sudermann, poete dramatique et romancier (1905); and I Axelrod, Hermann Sudermann (1907).

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