Author | Hanns Heinz Ewers |
---|---|
Original title | Vampir |
Language | German |
Publisher | Paul Steegemann Verlag |
Publication date | 1921 |
Publication place | Germany |
Published in English | 20 September 1934 [1] |
Pages | 478 |
Vampire (German : Vampir) is a 1921 novel by the German writer Hanns Heinz Ewers.
The novel is set in the United States during World War I and follows a German propaganda operative, Frank Braun, who struggles with a mysterious ailment and spends time with his devoted half-Jewish mistress. It was the last of Ewers' three novels about Braun. It was in parts inspired by Ewers' personal experiences as a pro-German propagandist in the United States during the war. [2]
Paul Steegemann Verlag published the book in 1921. An English translation was published in the United States in 1934 with several passages cut out. The American scholar Lisa Lampert-Weissig describes them as "passages depicting pedophilia, as well as Ewers' anti-American rhetoric, and his offensive racist language concerning people of color". [3] Lampert-Weissig writes that the novel presents an example of the connection between "vampirism and early twentieth-century discourses of race", complicated by Ewers' combination of overt philo-Semitism and German nationalism. [3]