‟We lack novelists such as Feuchtwanger, Wassermann, and Döblin”. The Dutch Reception of Berlin Alexanderplatz: A polyphony

Abstract

Within ayear after its initial publicationinGermanyin1929, Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz was translated into Dutch. Both, the original book and its translation wereread and discussed against the background of asearch for arenewal of prose writing.A uthorsa nd critics weref ascinateda nd puzzled by a novel that showed modernm etropolitan life in all its fury and thats eemed to break with the conventions of traditionalp sychological realism. The societal and political dimensions of the book however were largely ignored.This article explores the earlyreception of Berlin Alexanderplatz in the Netherlands in order to studyt he wayD utch critics classified, interpreted, and evaluated this book. The term Nieuwe Zakelijkheid was widelyp resent in literary criticism when Döblin'sb ook and its translation werel aunched on the Dutch book market (seeW agner 2019). It is plausible to assume that this new literary phenomenon constituted one of the contexts in which Döblin'sb ook was read. The research question underlying this exploration is twofold: how did Berlin Alexanderplatz function in contemporary critical discourse on literature, and to what extent did the Dutch reception show similarities with the Germanreception of the novel?T he analysis of reception documents from Dutch newspapers and periodicals from adiscursive and institutional perspective forms the basisof this exploration. After abrief introduction into the reception of foreign literature in the Netherlands duringt he 1930s (2)a nd as tate of affairs in research on the relationship between Berlin Alexanderplatz and Nieuwe Zakelijkheid (3), this chapter focuses on the analysis of the Dutch translation (4.1)and on the interpretation and evaluation of Döblin'sbook by Dutch critics (4.2 and 4.3). The conclusion (5) summarizes the findingsa nd makes suggestions for future research.