The Instituto Goethe of Madrid (calle Zurbarán, 21) presents tomorrow Thursday at 7 p.m. a meeting with the writer Uwe Wittstock, in which he will present his book Marseille 1940: The artists who fled from Nazism. The event will be held in German and Spanish with simultaneous translation. Free admission, prior booking on Eventbrite.
Uwe Wittstock returns to Spain to present the Spanish translation of his book Marseille 1940: The Artists Who Fled from Nazism. In this meeting, he will talk with the writer Edurne Portela. His essay reconstructs how the French city became in 1940 a haven for writers, artists and intellectuals persecuted by Nazism and highlights the decisive work of the American journalist Varian Fry, who organized a rescue network that allowed hundreds of them to flee, in an almost cinematic rhythm story that combines fear, resistance and humanity.
In May 1940, Hitler’s army invades France and advances rapidly, which puts under siege all those who fled the Nazi regime from 1933 and sought asylum on the other side of the Rhine. Again they have to flee, this time away from Europe.
Uwe Wittstock recounts here that dramatic trance of recent history through the figure of Varian Fry, an American journalist who mounted the so-called Centre Américain de Secours, whose mission was to save the most prominent representatives of culture. The port city of Marseille became a hotbed of persecuted or threatened, the only point from which to escape, heading for Africa or America, through Spain, Portugal or North Africa. There, personalities such as Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Heinrich Mann, Anna Seghers, André Breton, Max Ernst, Alma Mahler, Franz Werfel or Marc Chagall converged. Of all of them and many others, this fascinating essay tells the day-to-day anxieties and hopes of those who abandoned everything to save their lives.
Published in Germany in 2024 under the title Marseille 1940 – Die große Flucht der Literatur by C.H. Beck, the book was included in lists of the best titles of the year in media such as BuchMarkt, Die Welt, WDR 5, NZZ and ORF-Radio Ö1. The Spanish translation of Carlos Fortea is published in March 2026 in Galaxia Gutenberg.
This quote is part of the literary events cycle Literatura Hoy, which promotes meetings in Spain with authors and contemporary German-speaking literature. Writer Uwe Wittstock will also visit the Goethe Institute in Barcelona on 25 March 2026.
Pages: 376
Publisher: Galaxia Gutenberg, S.L.
Binding: Hard cover
ISBN: 9791387605742
RPP: 21,85 euros