Background
Oskar Maria Graf was born on July 22, 1894, in Berg, on Lake Starnberg, Bavaria, in Germany. He was the son of Max, a baker, and Theresa Heimrath Graf.
Oskar Maria Graf by Max Wagner (born 1956)
(Mischievous, unsophisticated and frivolous, Oskar Maria G...)
Mischievous, unsophisticated and frivolous, Oskar Maria Graf's 31 stories are about shameless wives and horned husbands, rough maids and fancy servants. With eloquent comedy, the popular writer tells of eroticism and peasant cunning between Isar and Inn.
https://www.amazon.com/bayrische-Dekameron-German-Oskar-Maria-ebook/dp/B00HQEI1WW/?tag=2022091-20
1928
(The present volume brings together events from the art mi...)
The present volume brings together events from the art milieu in Munich in the twenties and early thirties of the last century. At the heart of these self-deprecating essays, dialogues and autobiographical narratives - even on occasional trips to Berlin - is the Bavarian.
https://www.amazon.com/Notizbuch-Provinzschriftstellers-Oskar-Maria-German/dp/3869060107/?tag=2022091-20
1932
(Mid-19th century: In the village Flechting inherit the br...)
Mid-19th century: In the village Flechting inherit the brothers Jakob and Lenz Farg from their father a bakery. But the heritage is not a good star. After a fight, the brothers go their separate ways. Jakob gets the bakery, becomes a successful real estate speculator and takes advantage of the fact that the king wants to settle down with his farm on the spot. The bakery is flourishing and developing into a profitable company, while Lenz must starve with his family. Even the villagers are jealous of Jacob's success. There is political unrest, a revolution and finally a new king and a war. From the small nest Flechting becomes over the years a thriving tourist resort. With the times, the tide turns for Jakob Farg to a tragic end.
https://www.amazon.com/Die-Chronik-von-Flechting-German/dp/3869060069/?tag=2022091-20
1932
(The equally brilliant and oppressive portrayal of emergin...)
The equally brilliant and oppressive portrayal of emerging fascism in the province: A classic that has long been available as a single work for the first time in this edition.
https://www.amazon.com/Unruhe-einen-Friedfertigen-Roman-German-ebook/dp/B00HQEI27Q/?tag=2022091-20
1947
(Powerful, honest and with unsparing openness, Oskar Maria...)
Powerful, honest and with unsparing openness, Oskar Maria Graf describes his experiences from childhood to the end of the First World War and the time of the Munich Soviet Republic. A captivating and touching autobiography and a contemporary document of the first kind - Oskar Maria Graf became famous with this work. To this day it is one of his most important books.
https://www.amazon.com/Wir-sind-Gefangene-Bekenntnis-German-ebook/dp/B00HQEI1VS/?tag=2022091-20
1948
(From skating and sledging, from the hard everyday life of...)
From skating and sledging, from the hard everyday life of bakers before Christmas, from the ritual of "New Year's letter", from Swabian Christmas dinner in America and from old Bavarian Christmetten at Lake Starnberg - this is what Oskar Maria Graf tells in the stories and poems in this volume are gathered. In addition to the fun of discovering and reading enjoyment, this collection offers a fun-filled cross-section of the work of a great popular writer and resister.
https://www.amazon.com/Weihnachtsgans-German-Oskar-Maria-Graf-ebook/dp/B00HQEI1X6/?tag=2022091-20
(Bursting with burlesque and dramatic, serene and sad even...)
Bursting with burlesque and dramatic, serene and sad events, these stories are about life in the city and in the countryside. Lovingly, Oskar Maria Graf portrays official resident grantlers and sanguine and belligerent originals, tells of unfortunate loves and excessive greed, of peasant shrewdness and peasant stubbornness.
https://www.amazon.com/Kalendergeschichten-Vorwort-Konstantin-Wecker-German-ebook/dp/B00HQEI1Y0/?tag=2022091-20
(When the stationmaster Xaver Bolwieser learns that his wi...)
When the stationmaster Xaver Bolwieser learns that his wife is cheating on him, his petty-bourgeois world starts to totter. The rumor mill seethes. To save his marriage and his honor, Bolwieser swears a fateful perjury. The first »picaresque novel« Grafs, tragicomic and realistic told: A man is his wife's hearing, his blind love drives him into catastrophe.
https://www.amazon.com/Bolwieser-Roman-einer-Ehe-German-ebook/dp/B00HQEI1WM/?tag=2022091-20
Oskar Maria Graf was born on July 22, 1894, in Berg, on Lake Starnberg, Bavaria, in Germany. He was the son of Max, a baker, and Theresa Heimrath Graf.
In 1900, Oskar went to the state school in Aufkirchen, in the municipality of Berg.
Oskar began writing as a teenager after leaving his home town of Berg at the tender age of sixteen. He supported himself with various odd jobs but was always determined to make it as a writer. Munich, then the center of German culture, provided him with much stimulation and was a spawning ground for many new ideas.
His early writings were mostly poems and were published in avant-garde and expressionistic journals of the time. In 1914, he was forced to join the army, but his anti-militaristic stance led him into trouble with the authorities when he refused to carry out orders. He was promptly thrown in jail, but by pretending to be crazy he was instead committed to an insane asylum where he spent two years of his young adulthood. In 1919, he was involved in the leftist revolution and short-lived Soviet republic in Bavaria.
In the years following World War I, Graf changed his writing mode from poetry to narrative prose. He released Fruhzeit: Jugenderlebnisse (“Early Times: Experiences of Youth”) in 1922. The book was a chronicle of his own life from 1911 through 1917 and was published by Malik Verlag, which also published works by Else Lasker-Schuler, Upton Sinclair, and George Trakl. Following this book he published other works about the proletarian life of his childhood, as well as several rural short stories. His reputation grew steadily, but it was not until he released Prisoners All, a combination of Early Times: Experiences of Youth and his account of the Munich revolution of 1918-1919, that he received critical acclaim throughout Europe.
In 1927, Graf released a collection of contemporary fairy tales called Licht und Schatten (“Light and Shadow”). During this successful period before his exile, Graf managed to publish a book every year except in 1930, even putting out three in 1932.
Graf also produced some of his most humorous, as well as most popular, books. Das bayrische Dekameron (“The Bavarian Decameron”) of 1928 became well known in Germany because of its raunchy subject matter, even though it came very close to destroying his reputation as a serious author. In 1932, Dorfbanditen (“Village Bandits”) came out and focused on stories from his youth; and Notizbuch des Provinzschriftstellers Oskar Maria Graf 1932 (“Notebook of the Provincial Writer Oskar Maria Graf 1932”) was another autobiographically based book encompassing his observations and adventures in Munich and Berlin.
After the “Burn Me!” letter, Graf became a central organizer of resistance writers in Austria and involved himself with the proletariat of the “red” quarter in the city, leaving Austria after the workers’ uprising of February 1934, was stopped by pro-Fascist forces. Graf moved to Brno, Czechoslovakia, and lived there from 1934 to 1938. He published three of his most significant works there: Der harte Handel: Ein bayerischer Bauernroman (“The Hard Deal”) in 1935, Der Abgrund: Ein Zeitroman (“The Abyss”) in 1936, and Anton Sittinger: Roman in 1937. After four years, though, he realized he must once again flee from the Nazis and went to live in New York City. He and Mirjam sailed to the United States where two of his siblings had already become citizens. He released Das Leben meiner Mutter (“The Life of My Mother”) in 1940 and called it his “second major work” after Prisoners All.
Like Graf’s other works, The Life of My Mother did not find a wide market in the United States, even though it became Graf’s most popular work in Germany next to the Bavarian Decameron. The approach of war and Graf’s insistence on concentrating on a scattered German readership instead of trying to reach out to an American audience added to the book’s unpopularity.
Graf continued with his work started in Czechoslovakia, organizing exiled writers and giving anti-Nazi lectures and readings of his works in universities and before German-speaking groups across the United States. After the war two of Graf’s most notable novels were Unruhe um einen Fried fertigen: Roman (“Unrest around a Peace-Lover”) of 1947 and Die Flucht ins Mittelmaessige: Ein New-Yorker Roman (“Escape into Mediocrity”) of 1959.
(From skating and sledging, from the hard everyday life of...)
(Powerful, honest and with unsparing openness, Oskar Maria...)
1948(The equally brilliant and oppressive portrayal of emergin...)
1947(Mischievous, unsophisticated and frivolous, Oskar Maria G...)
1928(The present volume brings together events from the art mi...)
1932(Bursting with burlesque and dramatic, serene and sad even...)
(When the stationmaster Xaver Bolwieser learns that his wi...)
(Mid-19th century: In the village Flechting inherit the br...)
1932Graf was actively involved in organizations which fought for the freedom of expression and other human rights, which was evident in his writings of the time. The books Calendar Stories (1929) and The Station Master (1933) reflect his humanitarian outlook, as well as showing his critical viewpoint on the Nazi Regime.
Graf’s ever-evolving principles and brutal and honest questioning of the world he lived in was evident in all his works, and he never tamed them for his audience, regardless of his unpopularity. He was a man who believed in people’s responsibility to nurture their fellow men.
In 1958, Oskar became an American citizen, even though he never learned English, believing it would affect his writing.
In 1917, Oskar married Karoline Bretting, but they divorced in 1944. Then, on October 2, 1944, he married Mirjam Sacks, who died in 1959, and Oskar married again Gisela Blauner in 1962. From the first marriage he had a daughter, Annamirl Annemarie Koch.