De Vriendt Goes Home

Arnold Zweig

1932

Sensitive Content

This text includes depictions of homophobia and hate speech against people of Arab descent. It provides insight into history; however, The Posen Library does not condone homophobic language or hate speech of any kind.

Chapter 4. A Blow at the Heart

De Vriendt shut the door, but stayed with his forehead pressed against it; the strength had gone out of him. This Englishman knew. He knew the nature of his relation to the boy Saûd. He might be ever so much a gentleman, and ever so much more a friend—this was ruin. The frightful affliction with which God had stricken…

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Creator Bio

Arnold Zweig

1887–1968

The German-born novelist and writer Arnold Zweig is best known for his antiwar novel The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1927). A Zionist who was heavily influenced by Martin Buber, he wrote a romantic account of his own encounter with Russian Jewry, The Face of East European Jewry (1918), which was illustrated by Hermann Struck. He was also influenced by the writings of Freud, with whom he corresponded for twelve years, and in 1927 published a psychological study of antisemitism, Caliban oder Politik und Leidenschaft. After the Nazi takeover, he settled in Haifa, but, unable to master the Hebrew language and frustrated that Zionism failed to develop in a binational and primarily cultural Buberian direction, he left the newly created State of Israel to settle in Communist East Germany, where he was much feted by the new regime.

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