Reinhold Solgers Roman Anton in Amerika: Transatlantische Interpretationen des Amerikaerlebens

Abstract

Anton in Amerika: Novelle aus dem deutsch-amerikanischen Leben (Anton in America: A Novel from German-American Life, 1862), written by the German intellectual and revolutionary Reinhold Solger (1816-1866), depicts the often harrowing experiences of a German immigrant who arrives in New York in 1857. Serialized in the periodical New-Yorker Criminal-Zeitung und Belletristisches Journal, the novel was also published in book form: first in Bromberg (Prussia) in 1862 and then again in New York in 1872. Framed by the apparent contradiction of a hero who distances himself from the Old World but in the New World exhibits loyalty to his homeland, Anton sheds light on the critical category of German-American cultural transfer. The transatlantic character of this literary work is also underscored by passages in the German edition that are strongly critical of Americans and American life. These passages do not appear in the American editions, suggesting that the manuscript was revised for different readerships in the German territories and in the United States.