Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Somewhere in Germany by Stefanie Zweig Stefanie Zweig - obituary. Stefanie Zweig, who has died aged 81, drew on her childhood experience of the Jewish diaspora during the Nazi era in her bestselling novel Nowhere in Africa (originally published in Germany as Nirgendwo in Afrika in 1995); the book was the basis for a German film of the same name which won the Academy Award for best foreign language film in 2003. A journalist by profession, Stefanie Zweig took the theme in Nowhere in Africa of the rootlessness of her family’s life in Kenya, to which her hitherto prosperous family had escaped from Germany in 1938, when she was five. While her father — a Frankfurt lawyer given the name Walter Redlich in the novel — struggles to adjust to his new life as a farm manager in British East Africa, his daughter, “Regina”, rapidly picks up both Swahili and English and forms close friendships with the Africans who work on the land. A still from Nowhere in Africa, which won an Academy Award. Stefanie Zweig was born in Leobschütz, a German-speaking town that is now in Poland, on September 19 1932, and soon afterwards her family moved to Frankfurt. By the time she and her mother arrived in Kenya, in June 1938, her father had been working on a farm there for six months. “Having studied only Latin and Greek,” she wrote in The Guardian in 2003, “he neither knew English or anything about cattle or crops. It took me years to understand why my parents told friend and foe that they hated farming. [before he left Germany my father] did not even know that Kenya was a British colony in East Africa.” While her parents remained bewildered by their new life, Stefanie “loved everything about Kenya”, in particular its people; Nowhere in Africa is jointly dedicated to her father and their houseboy, Owuor. She was not so happy, however, at being sent to the government school in Nakuru, 200 miles from her home: “I hated it. I was an only child, pampered by adoring parents, homesick, shy and speechless — I could not speak a word of English and I had no idea what was expected from me. Having learned the language, I thought it my filial duty to be top of the class — school fees were £5 per month, my father earned £6, and I wanted him to feel that he was investing his hard-earned money well. It complicated my life that swots who were not good at sports were extremely unpopular at Nakuru.” She nevertheless developed a love of the English, and their literature and history. In 1947 the family returned to Frankfurt, where her father (untainted by Nazi affiliation) resumed his career in the law and became a judge. Back in Germany, as the family mourned the loss of Stefanie’s grandfather and two of her aunts, who had perished in the concentration camps, it was Stefanie’s turn to feel uprooted — an experience she explored in Somewhere in Germany (1996), a sequel to her earlier novel. As she recalled in 2003: “Now it was I who had to give up home and language, tradition, loyalty and love.” Post-war life was hard. Hunger was commonplace and it took the family 10 months to find one-room lodgings at the former Jewish hospital. Stefanie’s German was inadequate (she has spoken it only during the school holidays while at home with her parents), and she had to relearn the language and also erase her English accent. “The assessment as to which is my mother-language is still going on,” she noted later. “I count in English, adore Alice in Wonderland, am best friends with Winnie-the-Pooh and I am still hunting for the humour in German jokes.” Stefanie Zweig graduated from the Schiller School in Frankfurt in 1953. From 1959 until its closure in 1988, she worked as a journalist for the Abendpost Nachtausgabe paper, and was its arts editor from 1963. In her spare time she wrote children’s books, one of which — A Mouthful of Earth (1980) — won several awards; it was set in Africa, and gave her the idea to write Nowhere in Africa. In 2012 Stefanie Zweig published a memoir, Nirgendwo war Heimat: Mein Leben auf zwei Kontinenten (Nowhere was Home: My Life on Two Continents). Somewhere in Germany. The world’s #1 eTextbook reader for students. VitalSource is the leading provider of online textbooks and course materials. More than 15 million users have used our Bookshelf platform over the past year to improve their learning experience and outcomes. With anytime, anywhere access and built-in tools like highlighters, flashcards, and study groups, it’s easy to see why so many students are going digital with Bookshelf. titles available from more than 1,000 publishers. customer reviews with an average rating of 9.5. digital pages viewed over the past 12 months. institutions using Bookshelf across 241 countries. Somewhere in Germany A Novel by Stefanie Zweig and Publisher University of Wisconsin Press. Save up to 80% by choosing the eTextbook option for ISBN: 9780299210137, 0299210138. The print version of this textbook is ISBN: 9780299210106, 0299210103. Somewhere in Germany A Novel by Stefanie Zweig and Publisher University of Wisconsin Press. Save up to 80% by choosing the eTextbook option for ISBN: 9780299210137, 0299210138. The print version of this textbook is ISBN: 9780299210106, 0299210103. Somewhere in Germany (1996) Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Review contains spoilers for both books of the series. The first book of this autobiographical duology, "Nowhere in Africa", tells the story of the Redlich family's time in Kenya. While most of the names were changed, it is very similar to the author's own life story. The Redlich family are a Jewish family from Silesia who fled the Nazi terror to Kenya. While the parents feel lost and helpless, worry for the safety of the family members and friends who were not able to leave Germany, and cannot feel at home in Kenya, their daughter Regina has almost no memory of life in Germany. She speaks Swahili and Kikuyu, loves the landscape and wilderness of the farm, and feels at home with the Kikuyu people. Her mother, Jettel, finally gets used to their new life when she spends more time in Nairobi and makes friends, but her father, Walter, remains homesick. In the end of the novel, after the war has ended, he secures a position in Frankfurt as a judge. Although it's her biggest wish to stay in Kenya, Regina has to bid farewell. "Irgendwo in Deutschland" starts with the family's arrival in Frankfurt. The beginning of their new life there is not as they hoped for: The city is in ruins, it is very hard to find even the smallest or simplest lodgings, they suffer from hunger and there is still antisemitism which they encounter on the streets. It was interesting and emotional for me to read about these early days after the war and the hardships the family faced. While I don't want to liken my own family's plight to them in any way, I still thought of the stories my grandparents and parents told me. One aspect of this is the hostility against the people who were displaced from the east, such as my family. The Redlich family, being Jewish and from Silesia, were thus doubly affected by discrimination and it made their lives all the more difficult. There are a few lengthy parts in this and some events are told very extensively while other things, that would have interested me more, are only mentioned hastily. Some chapters deal heavily with Walter's job, although to me it would have been much more interesting to learn more about Regina's experiences at school. But it gets more interesting again in the second part of the novel. While Walter finds fulfillment in his occupation and is able to help other Jewish and displaced people, it is much harder for Jettel who did not want to return to the country of the people who killed her mother and sister. Every time she encounters an antisemitic slur, all the wounds start to bleed again. Thus, the story continues: With a lot of heartbreak, but also with hopeful and even happy moments - finding new and bigger lodgings, being able to finally buy a house, the first trips to the Harz Mountains and later to Austria and Switzerland. People turning up who they thought they would never see again. Spending evenings with old friends from Silesia and revelling in memories. Gaining a victory when finally being brave enough to stand up to a Nazi insulting them. This is how Regina grows up, but inside her, there are the memories of Kenya, ever present and ever calling to her. Because of that, it's ultimately a novel about belonging, about what makes a home and about how you deal with the past and how it shapes your identity. I cannot remember the last time I cried so hard over the pages of a book, but I am so thankful to Stefanie Zweig for sharing her story. ( ) Let's read. We are writing the year 1938 and attorney Walter Redlich manages to flee Nazi Germany in the last minute. They move to Kenya where he is hired as the manager of a farm. They are all experiencing this new country differently, Walter struggles with the different kind of work that is expected of him, Jettel misses the luxuries of her former life, both have more than a few difficulties with the culture and the language, let alone with the bad news they receive from Germany. Only Regina, 9 years old, embraces the life on the new continent, learns the languages, finds friends and cannot imagine another life. When her little brother Max is born in 1946, the family is complete. This is an almost-autobiography of author Stefanie Zweig. She is a wonderful author who has written a lot about the continent where she left her heart: Africa. There is a sequel to this book which is called " Somewhere in Germany ". It has taken long enough to translate this book into English, twelve years to be precise. In 2001, it was made into a movie and that movie received an Oscar for best foreign movie. The film is very good but, as usual, doesn't give the book any credit. Anyway, Stefanie Zweig is one of my favourite authors. She writes equally well about Jewish issues as well as about Africa since she spent an important time of her childhood there. She still lives in Frankfurt, though. We discussed this in our book club in April 2008. From the back cover: "Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel, and their five-year-old daughter, Regina, each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm as a caretaker; pampered Jettel resists adjustment at every turn; while the shy yet curious Regina immediately embraces the country - learning the local language and customs, and finding a friend in Owuor, the farm's cook. As the war rages on the other side of the world, the family’s relationships with their strange environment become increasingly complicated as Jettel grows more self-assured and Walter more haunted by the life they left behind. In 1946, with the war over, Regina's fondest dream comes true when her brother Max is born. Walter's decision, however, to return to his homeland to help rebuild a new Germany puts his family into turmoil again. " I have read the book again in the meantime and discussed it with another book club. Find my discussion questions here. Zweig, Stefanie "Somewhere in Germany" ( German: Irgendwo in Deutschland ) - 1996. As we all know, the war ends at some point and so the Redlich family returns back to Germany into bombed-out Frankfurt. This seems as hard as the move to Kenya. The post-war country is struggling, and so are the Redlichs. There is still anti-Semitism and hunger is ever present, they lost their whole family, they have to adjust to life in Europe again, for the children a completely unknown world. Regina grows up and starts working as a journalist. Life circumstances get better. Another great description of life in different circumstances. This is the sequel to " Nowhere in Africa ". Read the other one first and then come and discuss this with me. From the back cover: "Somewhere in Germany i s the sequel to the acclaimed Nowhere in Africa , which was turned into the Oscar-winning film of the same name. This novel traces the return of the Redlich family to Germany after their nine-year exile in Kenya during World War II. In Africa, Walter had longed for his homeland and dreamed of rebuilding his life as a lawyer, yet ultimately he and his family - wife Jettel, daughter Regina, and baby Max - realize that Germany seems as exotic and unwelcoming to them in 1947 as Kenya had seemed in 1938. Hunger and desperation are omnipresent in bombed-out Frankfurt, and this Jewish family - especially Regina, who misses Africa the most - has a hard time adjusting to their new circumstances. Yet slowly the family adapts to their new home amidst the ruins. In Frankfurt, Regina matures into a woman and, though her parents want her to marry an upstanding Jewish man, her love life progresses in its own idiosyncratic fashion. She develops a passion for art and journalism and begins her professional career at a Frankfurt newspaper. Walter at last finds professional success as a lawyer, but never quite adjusts to life in Frankfurt, recalling with nostalgia his childhood in Upper Silesia and his years in Africa. Only his son Max truly finds what Walter had hoped for: a new homeland in Germany. Although the Redlichs receive kindness from strangers, they also learn anti-Semitism still prevails in post-Nazi Germany. They partake in the West German 'economic miracle' with their own home, a second-hand car, and the discovery of television, but young Max’s discovery of the Holocaust revives long-buried memories. Rich in memorable moments and characters, this novel portrays the reality of postwar German society in vivid and candid detail. " We discussed this in our book club in January 2016. I have reread the book a couple of times. Find my new reviews here and here. and here. Showing results by narrator "Max Roll" in All Categories. Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel, and their five-year-old daughter, Regina, each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm as a caretaker; pampered Jettel resists adjustment at every turn; while the shy yet curious Regina immediately embraces the country - learning the local language and customs.