Monday, May 10, 2010

The Beggarwoman Of Locarno, by Heinrich von Kleist

The Beggarwoman of Locarno is a short story by Heinrich von Kleist. Kleist is more famously known for his stories Michael Kohlhaas and The Marquise of O–.  He was a German Romantic, first making a name for himself with his plays; he was also a poet and novelist.


The Beggarwoman of Locarno is surprisingly, a ghost story. I didn’t know it would be. It was a great little story about the punishment suffered if you don’t show charity to the poor. It was an easy read, which I did expect, having read The Marquise of O—. As I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t know if the likability of the writing style comes from the author or the translator. What I do know is that I enjoyed the story immensely. I hope, with this story, Kleist was able to teach a few rich men how to be nicer to the poor.

A copy of the text can be found here.

The post was written in conjunction with Short Story Monday hosted at The Book Mine Set.

3 comments:

  1. I've bookmarked this one for Halloween. It's a long way off I know, but I love ghost stories at that time of year.

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  2. When reading in translation, sometimes it's hard to know whether it's the work of the author or translator that you're connecting with. This sounds like a good story either way.

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  3. When I read The Helmet of Horror by Victor Pelevin, I mentioned translations and translators too. As a reader, I hope that the translators are true to the style of the author. At least with the translation I own, I've enjoyed Kleist's stories.

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