Background
Hermann Kesten was born on January 28, 1900 in Nuremberg, Germany, to Isaak Kesten and Ida Tisch, a family of relatively humble means but high ideals.
Hermann Kesten was born on January 28, 1900 in Nuremberg, Germany, to Isaak Kesten and Ida Tisch, a family of relatively humble means but high ideals.
Evidently, young Kesten adopted a lot of the intellectual proclivities and philosophical quandaries of his father, in which a broad examination of humankind assumes precedence over life's daily incidentals among people. Kesten studied similarly challenging subjects, but abandoned his formal studies in 1923 after losing the manuscript of his dissertation of Heinrich Mann, a person who happened to be a significant figure and influence throughout Kesten's life. For the next three years, Kesten's education was a product of extensive traveling throughout Europe and Africa.
He received honorary doctorates from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 1978, and the Free University of Berlin in 1982.
In 1926 Kesten took a job in Berlin as the literary editor of a publisher that specialized in antiwar literature. That same year, he published his first novel, Josef sucht die Freiheit. Even in this freshman work, Kesten's lifelong themes of integrity and freedom are present. However, the theme of his first novel deals specifically with an individual's crusade for freedom from his family, whereas later writings dealt with a variation of the theme, such as freedom from conventions, institutions, the church, and/or the state. His passion and literary ability increasingly earned him praise from both contemporaries and the public; his novels were translated into several languages, and his reputation grew accordingly.
However, this part of his professional career, referred to by critics as the Berlin Period, was brought to an abrupt end in 1933, when Hitler's regime began its ascent to power. Kesten was forced to go into exile and moved to Amsterdam, where he continued to focus his efforts on the opposition of the Nazis. In fact, he became particularly involved with publishing the works of other exiled writers, especially German exiles. Not surprisingly, Kesten's books were among the selected works that were destroyed by the Nazis. The next period of Kesten's professional career can be called the European Exile, which lasted from 1933 until 1940.
During this period, Kesten wrote two of his most successful and critically acclaimed works. Because of his expulsion from Germany, he turned his attention to historically important and influential events in another country altogether. Namely, he dedicated his efforts to Spain, producing Ferdinand und Isabella in 1936 and Koenig Philipp der Zweite in 1938. The first was translated as Spanish Fire: The Story of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1937, and the second was translated as I, the King in 1939, and was a fictionalized biography of King Philip II. A New York Times critic said of I, The King that it "would be more moving if not quite such a quantity of historical data crammed its pages." Meanwhile, a Times Literary Supplement reviewer commented on the timeliness of the book: "Herr Kesten is a little unfortunate in the time at which this translation of his book appears. For there cannot be many at the present moment who would wish to gloat over his dreadfully realistic pictures of the horrors of war.'' Rudolph went on to say that both novels "depict the rise of Spain as a world power in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Kesten describes the origin and development of a dictatorship in which the masses are oppressed by terror; the only escape from this totalitarian regime is exile. His novels serve as a diagnosis and prognosis of what was to happen to the Jews and to the opponents of Hitler's rule in Germany."
As if to confirm his fears of ill-treatment and persecution, his fiction was once again projected into his reality. When France declared war on Germany in 1939, Kesten was determined to be an "undesirable alien," and was consequently interned in a concentration camp for five weeks. Fortunately, he was allowed to leave France in 1940, at which point he moved to New York. This period of his life has been referred to as his American Exile. The physical and the emotional distance seemed to dilute the immediacy of his work, as he allowed himself to explore other more enjoyable, less severe and pressing literary projects. Thus, he submersed himself into the lives of two historically prominent figures. In 1945, he published a biography about the scientific giant Copernicus, and in 1952 he published a biography of the legendary and captivating Casanova.
Kesten's biographical efforts were met with both accolades and criticism. For the most part, however, his work was applauded.
Shortly after becoming U.S. citizens, the Kestens returned to Europe in 1949 for the first time since 1933 and settled in a modest apartment in Rome. However, they maintained a similarly modest apartment in New York and moved between the two places until 1977. He continued to dedicate time and effort to exiled writers and the publication of their work, and he has remained prolific with his own writing.
Quotations: "I have never written for arts' sake but only for truth or justice."
Hermann was a member of PEN Club.
Kesten was clearly not a man of frivolous concerns.
Hermann married Toni (nee Warowitz) Kesten in 1928.