The Story of the Last Thought

infobox Book |
name = The Story of the Last Thought
title_orig = Das Märchen vom letzten Gedanken
translator =


image_caption = German edition (2005)
author = Edgar Hilsenrath
cover_artist =
country = Germany
language = German
series =
genre = Historical, War novel
publisher = Piper
release_date = 1989
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

The novel "The Story of the Last Thought" (in German "Das Märchen vom letzten Gedanken") of the German-Jewish writer Edgar Hilsenrath is about the Armenian Genocide in 1915. The epic which has the form of a fairy tale ("Märchen") and for which Hilsenrath received many prizes is regarded as the most important book about this historical episode. In 2006 the president of Armenia presented the author with the State Award for Literature of the Republic of Armenia for his work.

Content

"The Story of the Last Thought" is the history of a village in Anatolia that is being destroyed by the Turks. The main character is the Armenian Wartan Khatisian, whose son Thovma is dying. His last thought - the last thought of a man, the fairy tale says, is beyond time - is being told the history of his ancestors, the life of suffering of the Armenian people. The storyteller Meddah guides the last thought of Thovma along the life paths of his father, that lead from a small idyllic mountain village into the torture chambers of the Turkish rulers, and let him become a witness of the big pogrom against the Armenians in 1915. “By means of an oriental fairy tale, and drawing from sagas and legends of this distressed nation, Hilsenrath goes far back into Armenian history and touches upon the plight of all genocide victims. A cruel book and nevertheless a book of love, of hope and of wonders.” (Cover text) Despite choosing a fictitious genre the historical facts have been carefully investigated and verified by the author.

Awards

For his epic "The Story of the Last Thought" Edgar Hilsenrath has received many prizes. In 1989 Günter Grass presented him with the prestigious "Alfred Döblin prize". In 2006 the president of Armenia, where Hilsenrath is regarded as a national hero, honoured him with the State Award for Literature of the Republic of Armenia for his work. Also in 2006 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the Yerevan State University for his work.

Reception and debate

After the first publication of Hilsenrath's novel (in Germany in 1989) the critic Alexander von Bormann wrote in the Swiss newspaper "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" with regard to Franz Werfel's "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh", the novel that had previously been considered to be the most important book about Armenia in world literature: “But I think Hilsenrath's novel is significantly superior to Werfel's: it is a historic and poetic novel at the same time.”

Manfred Orlick judged: “Over and over they say: one cannot write about this topic like this. But the author has managed to delineate the cruelties through innumerable short dialogues, to portray them movingly and in this way get across the historical facts. An inhuman book of fairy tales as only Hilsenrath could write it.” [Manfred Orlick, "Hilsenrath, Edgar: Das Märchen vom letzten Gedanken", http://www.buchinformationen.de/rezension.php?id=1643, retrieved on July 1, 2008.]

The author himself considers "The Story of the Last Thought" to be his most poetic work.

The English translation was published in Great Britain in 1990 (paperback 1994).

External Links

Articles

* [http://www.azg.am/?lang=AR&num=2006051102 Armenian article with photograph] of Edgar Hilsenrath presented with the State Award for Literature of the Republic of Armenia for his work by the president, Robert Kocharyan
* [http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1952836,00.html Bestselling German-Jewish Author Satirizes the Holocaust] , Deutsche Welle, April 9, 2006

References