– 15 November 1942, Engadin

Engadin

The Engadin or Engadine is a long valley in the Swiss Alps located in the canton of Graubünden in southeast Switzerland. It follows the route of the Inn River from its headwaters at Maloja Pass running northeast until the Inn flows into Austria one hundred kilometers downstream...

, Switzerland) was a Swiss writer, journalist, photographer and traveler.

Life

Annemarie was born in Bocken, near Zurich, Switzerland. Her father, Alfred, was a wealthy businessman in the silk industry; her mother, Renée

Renée Schwarzenbach-Wille

Renée Schwarzenbach-Wille was a Swiss photographer.- Life :Renée Schwarzenbach was the daughter of Swiss General Ulrich Wille and Clara Countess Bismarck, which meant she was a granddaughter of Count Friedrich Wilhelm Bismarck , the famous German soldier, writer and diplomat...

, the daughter of Swiss general and descended from German aristocracy, was a prominent hostess, horsewoman and photographer.

From an early age she began to dress and act like a boy, a behaviour not discouraged by her parents, and which she retained all her life—in fact in later life she was often mistaken for a young man.

At her private school in Zurich she studied only German, history and music, and liked dancing, but her heart was set on becoming a writer. She studied in Zürich and in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and earned her doctorate in history at the University of Zurich at the age of 23. She started work as a journalist while still a student. Shortly after completing her studies she published her first novel "Freunde um Bernhard" (Bernhard's Circle), which was well received. In 1930 she made contact with Erika Mann

Erika Mann

Erika Julia Hedwig Mann was a German actress and writer, the eldest daughter of novelist Thomas Mann and Katia Mann.-Life:...

 (daughter of Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...

). She was fascinated by Erika's charm and self-confidence. A relationship developed, which much to Annemarie's disappointment did not last long (Erika had her eye on another woman: the actress Therese Giehse

Therese Giehse

Therese Giehse , born Therese Gift, was a distinguished German actress. Born in Munich to German-Jewish parents, she first appeared on the stage in 1920. She became a major star on stage, in films, and in political cabaret...

), although they always remained friends. Though still smarting from Erika's rejection, from the following year she spent most of her time in Berlin. She found a soul-mate in Klaus

Klaus Mann

- Life and work :Born in Munich, Klaus Mann was the son of German writer Thomas Mann and his wife, Katia Pringsheim. His father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews. He began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a...

, brother of Erika, and settled in with the Manns as an adoptive family. With Klaus she started experimenting with the use of drugs. She led a fast life in the bustling artistic city that was Berlin towards the close of the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

. She lived in Charlottenburg

Charlottenburg

Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...

, drove fast cars and threw herself into the Berlin night-life. "She lived dangerously. She drank too much. She never went to sleep before dawn", recalled a friend. Her androgynous beauty fascinated and attracted both men and women.

In 1932 Annemarie planned a car trip to Persia with Klaus and Erika Mann, and a childhood friend of the Manns, Ricki Hallgarten. The evening before the trip was due to start, on 5 May, Ricki, suffering from depression, shot himself in his house in Utting on the Ammersee

Ammersee

Ammersee is a lake in Upper Bavaria, Germany located southwest of Munich between the towns of Herrsching and Dießen am Ammersee. With a surface area of approximately , it is the sixth largest lake in Germany. The lake is located at an elevation of , and has a maximum depth of . Like other Bavarian...

.

Annemarie's life-style ended with the Nazi take-over in 1933, and Bohemian Berlin disappeared. Tensions with her family increased, as some family members sympathised with the Swiss Fronts, which favoured closer ties with Nazi Germany. Her parents urged Annemarie to renounce her friendship with the Manns and help with the reconstruction of Germany under Hitler. This she could not do—her circle included Jews and political refugees from Germany. Instead later on she helped the Manns finance an anti-Fascist literary review, Die Sammlung. The pressure she felt under led her to attempting suicide, which caused a scandal among her family and their conservative circle in Switzerland.

She took several trips abroad with Klaus Mann, to Italy, France and Scandinavia, in 1932 and 1933. In 1933 also she travelled with the photographer Marianne Breslauer

Marianne Breslauer

Marianne Breslauer was a German photographer during the Weimar Republic.- Life :...

 to Spain, to carry out a report on the Pyrenees. Marianne too was fascinated by Annemarie: "She was neither a man nor a woman," she wrote, "but an angel, an archangel". Later that year Annemarie travelled to Persia. After her return to Switzerland, she accompanied Klaus Mann to a Writers Union Congress in Moscow. This was Klaus's most prolific and successful period as a writer. On her next trip abroad she wrote to him suggesting their marrying, although he was a homosexual—nothing came of this proposal.

In 1935 she returned to Persia where, despite her lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 outlook, she married the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 diplomat

Diplomat

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

 Claude Clarac, also a homosexual. They had known each other for only a few weeks, and it was a marriage of convenience for both of them. Unfortunately they moved to an isolated area outside Teheran where their lonely existence had an adverse affect on Annemarie. She turned to morphine

Morphine

Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...

, which she had been using for years for various ailments, but to which she now became addicted. She returned to Switzerland for a holiday, taking in Russia and the Balkans by car. In Moscow she acquired the films and diary of Lorenz Saladin

Lorenz Saladin

Lorenz Salading , was a Swiss mountain-climber, journalist, photographer and traveler. His large archive of photographs and reports of his expeditions were discovered in Russian sources in 2008....

, a Swiss mountain-climber who had lost his life on the Russian-Chinese border, and took them to Switzerland, with the intention of writing a book on him. However, once home, she could not face returning to the isolation she had experienced in Persia. She rented a house in Sils

Sils

-Places:*Sils, Girona, a municipality in the comarca of Selva in Catalonia, Spain**Lake Sils, Catalonia, an ancient lake near Sils*Sils im Engadin/Segl, consisting of Sils-Maria und Sils-Baselgia, in Graubünden, Switzerland...

 in Oberengadin, which became a refuge for herself and her friends. She wrote Tod in Persien (Death in Persia), which was not published until 1998, although a reworked version appeared as Das Glückliche Tal (The Happy Valley) in 1940. Here she also wrote what was to become her most successful book, Lorenz Saladin: Ein Leben für die Berge.

In 1937 and 1938 her photographs documented the rise of Fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 in Europe—she was a committed anti-Fascist. She visited Austria and Czechoslovakia. She took her first trip to the USA, where she accompanied her American friend, photographer Barbara Hamilton-Wright, by car along the eastern coast, as far as Maine. They then travelled into the Deep South and to the coal basins of the industrial regions around Pittsburgh. Her photographs documented the lives of the poor and down-trodden in these regions.

In June 1939, in an effort to combat her drug addiction and escape from the hovering clouds of violence in Europe, she embarked on an overland trip to Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 with the ethnologist Ella Maillart

Ella Maillart

Ella Maillart was a French-speaking Swiss adventurer, travel writer and photographer, as well as a sportswoman.- Life :...

. Maillart had "lorry-hopped" from Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 to India two years previously and had fond memories of the places encountered on that trip. They set off from Geneva in a small Ford car and travelled via Istanbul, Trabzon

Trabzon

Trabzon is a city on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Trabzon, located on the historical Silk Road, became a melting pot of religions, languages and culture for centuries and a trade gateway to Iran in the southeast and the Caucasus to the northeast...

 and Teheran and in Afghanistan took the Northern route from Herat

Herat

Herāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan...

 to Kabul

Kabul

Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

.
They were in Kabul when World War 2 broke out. In Afghanistan Annemarie became ill with bronchitis and other ailments, but she still insisted on travelling on to Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...

. In Kabul they split up, Maillart despairing of ever weening her friend away from her drug addiction. They met once more in 1940 as Annemarie was boarding the ship to return her to Europe. The trip is described by Maillart in her book The Cruel Way,
which was dedicated to "Christina" (the name Maillart used for Annemarie in the book, at the request of her mother, Renée).
It was made into a movie, The Journey to Kafiristan, in 2001.

She is reported to have had affairs with the daughter of the Turkish

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 Ambassador in Teheran and a female archaeologist in Turkmenistan.

After the Afghanistan trip she travelled to the USA, where she met again her friends the Manns. With them she worked with a committee for helping refugees from Europe. However, Erika soon decided to travel to London, which disappointed Annemarie and she soon became disillusioned with her life in the USA. In the meantime another complication had come into her life: in a hotel she met the up-and-coming 23-year old writer Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers was an American writer. She wrote novels, short stories, and two plays, as well as essays and some poetry. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South...

, who fell madly in love with her ("She had a face that I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life", wrote Carson). Carson's passion was not reciprocated—in fact she was devastated at Annemarie's apparent disinterest in her. Annemarie knew that there was no future in a one-sided relationship, and avoided meeting with Carson, but they remained friends and later they conducted a long and tender correspondence. Carson dedicated her next novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye

Reflections in a Golden Eye (novel)

Reflections in a Golden Eye is a 1941 novel by American author Carson McCullers.It first appeared in Harper's Bazaar in 1940, serialized in the October–November issues. The book was published by Houghton Mifflin on February 14, 1941, to mostly poor reviews...

, to Annemarie. Annemarie was also at this time involved in a difficult relationship with the wife of a wealthy man, Baronessa Margot von Opel, and was still struggling with her feelings for Erika Mann. This contributed to another bout of depression which saw her hospitalised and released only under the condition that she leave the USA.

In March 1941 Annemarie arrived back in Switzerland, but she was soon on the move again. She travelled as an accredited journalist to the Free French in the Belgian Congo

Belgian Congo

The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...

 where she spent some time but was prevented from taking up her position. In May 1942 in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

 she met the German journalist Margret Boveri

Margret Boveri

Margret Antonie Boveri was one of the best-known German journalists and writers of the post-WW2 period.-Life:Margret Boveri was born in Würzburg, Germany, the daughter of German biologist Theodor Boveri and American biologist Marcella O'Grady Boveri. Her father died in 1915 and her mother returned...

, who had been deported from the USA (her mother, Marcella O'Grady, was American). In June 1942 in Tétouan

Tétouan

Tetouan is a city in northern Morocco. The Berber name means literally "the eyes" and figuratively "the water springs". Tetouan is one of the two major ports of Morocco on the Mediterranean Sea. It lies a few miles south of the Strait of Gibraltar, and about 40 mi E.S.E. of Tangier...

 she met up again with her husband Claude Clarac before returning to Switzerland. While back home she started making new plans – she had been offered a position as a correspondent for a Swiss newspaper in Lisbon. In August her friend the actress Therese Giehse stayed with her at Sils.

On 7 September 1942 in the Engadin

Engadin

The Engadin or Engadine is a long valley in the Swiss Alps located in the canton of Graubünden in southeast Switzerland. It follows the route of the Inn River from its headwaters at Maloja Pass running northeast until the Inn flows into Austria one hundred kilometers downstream...

 she fell from her bicycle and sustained a serious head injury, and, following a mistaken diagnosis in the clinic where she was treated, she died on 15 November. During her final illness her mother permitted neither Claude Clarac, who had rushed to Sils from Marseille, nor her friends, to visit her in her sick bed. After Annemarie's death, her mother destroyed all her letters and diaries. A friend took care of her writings and photographs, which were later archived in the Swiss Literature Archive in Bern.

Throughout much of the final decade of her life she was addicted to morphine (although she wrote prolifically) and was intermittently under psychiatric

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 treatment. She suffered from depression, which she felt resulted from a disturbed relationship with her domineering mother. "She brought me up as a boy and as a child prodigy", Annemarie recalled later of her mother. "She deliberately kept me alone, to keep me with her […]. But I could never escape her, because I was always weaker than her, but, because I could argue my case, felt stronger and that I was right. And while I love her."
Her family problems were exacerbated by family members supporting right-wing politicians, while Annemarie hated the Nazis. Despite her problems, Annemarie was extraordinarily prolific: besides her books, between 1933 and 1942 she produced approximately 170 articles and 50 photo-reports for Swiss and German newspapers and magazines.

Annemarie is portrayed by Klaus Mann in two of his novels: as Johanna in Flucht in den Norden (1934) and as the Angel of the Dispossessed in Vulkan (The Volcano, 1939).

Major works

Schwarzenbach wrote in German. Many of her works have not been translated to English; see the bibliography in:

• Annemarie Schwarzenbach. Analysen und Erstdrucke. Mit einer Schwarzenbach-Bibliographie. Eds. Walter Fähnders / Sabine Rohlf. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2005. ISBN 3-89528-452-1

• Das glückliche Tal (new edition Huber Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-7193-0982-7)
• Lyrische Novelle (new edition Lenos, 1993, ISBN 3-85787-614-X)
• Bei diesem Regen (new edition Lenos, 1989, ISBN 3-85787-182-2)
• Jenseits von New York (new edition Lenos, 1992, ISBN 3-85787-216-0)
• Freunde um Bernhard (new edition Lenos, 1998, ISBN 3-85787-648-4)
• Tod in Persien (new edition Lenos, 2003, ISBN 3-85787-675-1)
• Auf der Schattenseite (new edition Lenos, 1995, ISBN 3-85787-241-1)
• Flucht nach oben (new edition Lenos, 1999, ISBN 3-85787-280-2)
• Alle Wege sind offen (new edition Lenos, 2000, ISBN 3-85787-309-4)
• Winter in Vorderasien (new edition Lenos, 2002, ISBN 3-85787-668-9)
• Georg Trakl. Erstdruck und Kommentar, hrsg. v. Walter Fähnders u. Andreas Tobler. In: Mitteilungen aus dem Brenner-Archiv 23/2004, S. 47-81
• Pariser Novelle [Erstdruck aus dem Nachlaß, hrsg. v. Walter Fähnders]. In: Jahrbuch zur Kultur und Literatur der Weimarer Republik 8, 2003, S. 11-35.
• Unsterbliches Blau (gemeinsam Ella Maillart
  Ella Maillart
  Ella Maillart was a French-speaking Swiss adventurer, travel writer and photographer, as well as a sportswoman.- Life :...
  
   und Nicolas Bouvier
  Nicolas Bouvier
  Nicolas Bouvier was a 20th-century Swiss traveller and writer as well as an iconographer and photographer.-Life:Bouvier was born at Grand-Lancy near Geneva, the youngest of three children...
  
  , new edition Scheidegger & Spiess, 2003, ISBN 3-85881-148-3)
• Wir werden es schon zuwege bringen, das Leben. (Briefe von A. Schwarzenbach an Klaus und Erika Mann, ISBN 3-89085-681-0)
• Orientreisen. Reportagen aus der Fremde. Ed. Walter Fähnders. Berlin: edition ebersbach, 2010. ISBN 978-3-86915-019-2
• Das Wunder des Baums. Roman. Ed. Sofie Decock, Walter Fähnders,Uta Schaffers. Zürich: Chronos, 2011, ISBN 978-3-0340-1063-4.

External links

• German national library catalog
• Barbara Lorey de Lacharrière. "Annemarie Schwarzenbach: A Life" from the Swiss Institute
• Der Engel http://www.literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=11940
• Photo of Annemarie Schwarzenbach
• Photos by Marianne Breslauer of Annemarie Schwarzenbach