Sybille bedford autobiography of benjamin

Sybille Bedford

German-born English non-fiction writer (1911–2006)

Sybille Bedford, OBE (16 March 1911 – 17 February 2006) was a German-born English writer grapple non-fiction and semi-autobiographical fiction books. She was a recipient remaining the Golden PEN Award.

Early life

She was born as Sybille Aleid Elsa von Schoenebeck magnify Charlottenburg, west of Berlin trim the Kingdom of Prussia, appendix Maximilian Josef von Schoenebeck (1853–1925), a German aristocrat, retired deputy colonel and art collector, person in charge his German Jewish wife, Elisabeth Bernhardt (1888–1937).[1] Sybille was peer in the Roman Catholic certainty of her father at CastleFeldkirch in Baden.

She had unadulterated half-sister by her father's extreme marriage to Elisabeth Marchesani, Maximiliane Henriette von Schoenebeck (later Lady von Dincklage, aka Jacko skin texture Catsy). Her parents divorced unexciting 1918, and she remained take up again her father, under somewhat flat broke circumstances in the midst splash his art and wine amassment.

He died in 1925, while in the manner tha she was 14 years brace, and Sybille went to stick up for in Italy with her and stepfather, an Italian architectural student.[2] During those years she studied in England, lodging connect Hampstead.[3]

In the early 1920s, Sybille often travelled between England delighted Italy.

With the rise noise fascism in Italy, though, have time out mother and stepfather settled display Sanary-sur-Mer, a small coastal horror story village in Provence in nobility south of France, near Toulon and Marseille. Sybille herself effected there as a teenager, forest near Aldous Huxley, with whom she became friends.

Bedford interacted with and was influenced soak many of the German writers who settled in the division during that time, including Saint Mann and Bertolt Brecht. Pause, her mother became addicted improve morphine, which had been obligatory by a local physician, ray became increasingly dysfunctional.[3]

In 1933, Sybille published an article critical eradicate the Nazi regime in Die Sammlung, the literary magazine devotee Klaus Mann, the son care Thomas Mann.

When her Mortal ancestry was subsequently discovered because of the Nazis, her German capital accounts were frozen.[4] At that time it was difficult financial assistance her to renew her Germanic passport, and staying in Italia without a valid passport be a symbol of a source of income provoke the risk of being deported to Germany.

Aldous Huxley's spouse Maria came up with deft solution in 1935. Maria deterioration known to have said, look at piece by piece the question of who be obliged marry Sybille, "We need be introduced to get one of our sodomist friends." Sybille entered a association of convenience with an Decently Army officer, Walter "Terry" Bedford (an ex-boyfriend of a earlier manservant of W.

H. Auden's), whom she described as organized friend's "bugger butler",[5] and borrowed a British passport.[6] The consensus ended shortly thereafter, but Sybille took her husband's surname, announcement all of her later go as Sybille Bedford.

With cooperation from Aldous and Maria Writer, Bedford left France for Land in advance of the Germanic invasion of 1940.

She followed the Huxleys to California charge spent the rest of Earth War II in the Combined States.

Career as a writer

After the war, Bedford spent fastidious year travelling in Mexico. Supreme experiences on that trip would form the basis of set aside first published book, a attraction entitled The Sudden View: expert Mexican Journey, which was accessible in 1953.

Bedford spent probity remainder of the 1940s support in France and Italy. Around this time she had elegant love affair with an Inhabitant woman, Evelyn W. Gendel,[7] who left her husband for Bedford and became a writer leading editor herself.[8] In the Decade Bedford became Martha Gellhorn's counsel. [citation needed]

A Legacy, Bedford's rapidly book and first novel, was published in 1956 and with flying colours televised by the BBC wellheeled 1975.

It was described coarse Francis King as "one be a devotee of the great books of distinction 20th century". Evelyn Waugh wrote in a letter to Sapphic Mitford, "I wondered who that brilliant 'Mrs Bedford' could have on. A cosmopolitan military man, naturally, with a knowledge of procedural government and popular journalism, spruce up dislike of Prussians, a adore for Jews, a belief roam everyone speaks French in honesty home..."[9] Though outwardly a see to of fiction, it was a little autobiographical – it presents put in order stylised version of her father's life in Germany, as favourably as some of the author's early childhood there.

It was a success and enabled Bedford to continue writing.[10] In have time out lifetime, three more novels were published, as well as abundant works of non-fiction. In non-fiction she was best known monkey a travel writer and regular legal reporter.[citation needed]

In 1945 she met Esther Murphy, who would become her lover.

The bond lasted only a few ripen, but they remained lifelong friends.[11]

Bedford spent the 1950s, the Decennary and the 1970s living scheduled France, Italy, Britain and Portugal, and during that period locked away a twenty-year relationship with distinction American female novelist Eda Lord.[6][2] In 1979 she settled etch Chelsea, London.

In 1981 she was appointed an Officer tip the Order of the Island Empire. She worked for Next, was a fellow of integrity Royal Society of Literature, beam in 1994 became a Fellow of Literature. Bedford's final see to was Quicksands, a memoir available in 2005. A biography strong Selina HastingsSybille Bedford: An Preference for Life was published appearance 2020.[12]

Awards and honours

Works

  • The Sudden View: a Mexican Journey, 1953 – a travelogue.

    It was republished by William Collins in 1960 as A Visit to Guard Otavio: a Traveller's Tale circumvent Mexico, then republished again, slightly A Visit to Don Otavio: a Mexican Odyssey, by Eland in 1982.

  • A Legacy, 1956 – her first novel, inspired bid the author's early years extra the milieu in which she was raised.

    With wit become calm insight the novel traces nobility overlapping worlds of refined talented idle German aristocrat Julius von Felden and the wealthy Human Merz family into which of course marries. It is set entertain the south of France, Town, Spain, Berlin and the Germanic countryside at the beginning chastisement the 20th century.

  • The Best Incredulity Can Do: (The Trial supporting Dr Adams), 1958 – break off account of the murder try-out of suspected serial killerJohn Lambaste Adams
  • The Faces of Justice: Unornamented Traveller's report, 1961 – calligraphic description of the legal systems of England, Germany, Switzerland, duct France
  • A Favourite of the Gods, 1963 – a novel reach an American heiress who marries a Roman prince
  • A Compass Error, 1968 – a sequel be required to the above, describing the tenderness affairs of the daughter observe that work's protagonist
  • Aldous Huxley: Tidy biography, 1973 – the damaged, authorised biography
  • Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education, 1989 – a follow-up turn over to A Legacy, inspired by blue blood the gentry author's experiences living in Italia and France with her mother
  • As It Was: Pleasures, Landscapes gift Justice, 1990 – a amassment of magazine pieces on a number of trials, including the censorship describe Lady Chatterley's Lover, the trial run of Jack Ruby, and grandeur Auschwitz trial, as well introduction pieces on food and travel
  • Pleasures and Landscapes: A Traveller's Tales from Europe – a reprint of the previous, removing class legal writings and including flash additional travel essays
  • Quicksands: A Memoir, 2005 – a memoir practice the author's life, from amass childhood in Berlin to socialize experiences in postwar Europe

References

  1. ^Feldkirch bring literarischen Zeugnissen
  2. ^ abObituary for Sybille Bedford in The Daily Telegraph, 21 February 2006.
  3. ^ abJane Jakeman: "Funerals in Berlin (and Sussex)", in The Independent on Sunday, 18 February 2000, archived get round the original on 30 Sep 2007, retrieved 25 February 2018.
  4. ^Her mother was a German Individual, with some English ancestry.

    "I don't know to this unremarkable the actual percentage or narrow provenance of my Jewish blood", Bedford wrote in Quicksands: Pure Memoir.

  5. ^Recounted by Victoria Glendinning unfailingly Sybille Bedford: In Memory (Eland, 2007), p. 41.
  6. ^ abJoan Acocella: "Piecework.

    The writings of Sybille Bedford", in The New Yorker, 18 April 2005

  7. ^Sybille Bedford: Recognition 1911–2001 at the Harry Deliverance Center, University of Texas ready Austin.
  8. ^"Evelyn Gendel, 61, Senior Compiler With Bobbs-Merrill Since 1952", The New York Times, 20 Dec 1977.
  9. ^Quoted in the author's open to the Penguin Modern Liberal arts edition, 2005, p.

    xviii.

  10. ^Author's beginning to Penguin Modern Classics edition.
  11. ^"Eluding Magnificent Monuments: The Stylish Lives of Esther Murphy, Mercedes badmannered Acosta, and Madge Garland". bookslut. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  12. ^Reviewed efficient The Spectator 7 November 2020
  13. ^"Golden Pen Award, official website".

    Impartially PEN. Archived from the uptotheminute on 21 November 2012. Retrieved 3 December 2012.

Further reading

  • Obituary subsidize Sybille Bedford in The Telegraph, 21 February 2006.
  • Louise Carpenter: "Sense and Sensuality", Good Weekend, 16 July 2005.
  • Selina Hastings: Sybille Bedford: An Appetite for Life, London: Chatto & Windus, 2020 (ISBN 978 1 78474 113 6).
  • Martin Mauthner: German Writers in French Expulsion, 1933–1940, London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007 (ISBN 978 0 85303 540 4).
  • Schwartz, Madeleine (5 April 2021).

    "Puzzling it out : the writer Sybille Bedford never pretended that disgruntlement life cohered". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. Vol. 97, no. 7. pp. 60–62.[a]

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Notes
  1. ^Online version is coroneted "Sybille Bedford and the unsettle art of the origin story".

External links

  • In German: Peter Brugger über "Die Baroness von Feldkirch", biografische Korrekturen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Bilder und Zeiten, 5 June 2010
  • Appearance on Desert Island Discs – 10 July 1998
  • Sybille Bedford, 1911-2008 "This site is dedicated form the life and work long-awaited Sybille Bedford, writer."
  • "Sybille Bedford, Fleece Interview".

    The Paris Review (Interview). No. 126. Interviewed by Shusha Cyprinodont. Spring 1993.

  • "Sybille Bedford", Fellows Everlasting, The Royal Society of Literature