Bloomsbury in Berlin: Vita Sackville-West's Seducers in Ecuador on the German Literary Marketplace

Abstract

Vita Sackville-West is now best known as Virginia Woolf's muse, as a horticultural journalist, and as the creator of Sissinghurst's gardens. Yet during her lifetime, her works were translated energetically into German and she was cast in some German literary journals as a leading figure on the European interwar and post-war literary scene. This essay analyses how Sackville-West's short story, Seducers in Ecuador (Hogarth Press, 1924), made its 1929 debut in Germany as ‘Verführer in Ecuador’ in the journal Die neue Rundschau [The New Review]. This offers an interesting case study not only of how a work could change its medium through translation – from a free-standing novella to a short story in a literary journal – but also its context through the new set of juxtapositions and cultural associations it acquired by being absorbed into German periodical culture. The function of small magazines in promoting new ideas or forms of art has been well researched in the context of British modernist writing, but little attention has been paid to the reception of translations of such work in European journals. Yet they often functioned as important promotional conduits and were influential in shaping how authors gained footholds in foreign markets.

Batchelor, Kathryn; Chamberlain, Lesley; Martin, Alison E; (2022) Harold in Germany, Vita in Love: Stories from Sissinghurst's Library. UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS)

“…73 As a prize-winning English writer, this was an exciting time for Vita to be in Germany: there was keen interest in contemporary British literature, and many works were appearing in German translation, including Vita's own: her short story 'Seducers in Ecuador', was published in German in the leading literary magazine Die Neue Rundschau in 1929. 74 Meanwhile Virginia Woolf had just signed a contract with German publisher Insel Verlag to bring out translations of Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse. 75 'You are the idol of the Berlin intelligentsia', Vita wrote to Virginia from Berlin in February 1928.…”