SPERBER, Manés

Nationality: Russian. Born: Zablotow, Austria-Hungary, 12 December 1905. Education: Studied psychology, Vienna, Austria, 1920s. Military Service: Volunteer with the French Army during World War II. Family: Married twice; two sons (one from each marriage). Career: Immigrated to France, 1934. Teacher and lecturer in Austria and Germany; professor of psychology, University of Berlin, 1927-33; literary director, Calmann-Levy publishers, Paris, 1936-80. Also contributor to periodicals, including New York Times Book Review, Encounter, and Merkur. Editor, psychological journal Zeitschrift für individualpsychologische Pädagogik und Psychohygiene, until 1933. Member, Communist Party, 1927-37. Awards: Remembrance award, World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Associations, 1967, for … Like a Tear in the Sea; Literature prize, Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, 1971; Goethe prize, city of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1973; Georg Buechner prize, German Academy of Language and Poetry, 1975; Austrian State prize for European literature, 1977; Peace prize, German Booksellers Association, 1983. Died: 5 February 1984.

Publications

Collections

Qu'une larme dans l'ocean, translated to French by Sperber and Gidon (novels). 1951; original German edition published as Win eine Träne im Ozean: Romantrilogie, 1961; as Like a Tear in the Ocean, 1988.

All das Vergangene … (biographies). c. 1983.

Novels

Et le buisson devint cendre, translated to French by Sperber and Blanche Gidon. 1949; original German edition published as Der verbrannte Dornbusch, 1950; translated as The Burned Bramble, 1951; in England as The Wind and the Flame, 1951.

Plus profondque l'abime, translated to French by Sperber and Gidon. 1950; as The Abyss, 1952; in England as To Dusty Death, 1952; original German edition published as Tiefer als der Abgrund, 1961.

La Baie perdue (Victi vincendi), translated to French by Sperber and Gidon. 1952; as Journey without End, 1954; original German edition published as Die verlorene Bucht, 1955; translated in England as The Lost Bay, 1956.

Wolyna. 1984.

Der schwarze Zaun [The Black Fence]. 1986.

Other

Alfred Adler: Der Mensch und sein Lehre [Alfred Adler: The Man and His Teaching]. 1926.

Zur Analyse der Tyrannis; Das Unglueck, begabt zu sein: Zwei sozialpsychologische Essays. 1938.

Le Talon d'Achille: Essais (essays). 1957; as The Achilles Heel, 1959.

Zur taeglichen Weltgeschichte (essays and lectures). 1967; as Essays zur taeglichen Weltgeschichte, c. 1981.

Man and His Deeds (essay selections in English). 1970.

Alfred Adler; oder, Das Elend der Psychologie. 1970; as Masks of Loneliness: Alfred Adler in Perspective, 1974.

Wir und Dostojewskij: Eine Debatte mit Heinrich Boell, Siegfried Lenz, Andre Malraux, Hans Erich Nossack, gefuehrt von Manes Sperber. 1972.

Leben in dieser Zeit: Sieben Fragen zur Gewalt. 1972.

Die Wassertraeger Gottes: All das Vergangene … (biographies). 1974; as God's Water Carriers, 1987.

Die vergebliche Warnung: All das Vergangene … (biographies). 1975; as The Unheeded Warning, 1991.

Bis man mir Scherben auf die Augen legt: All das Vergangene … (biographies). c. 1977; as Until My Eyes Are Closed with Shards, 1994.

Geist und Ungeist in Wien, with others (essays and lectures). 1978.

Individuum und Gemeinschaft: Versuch einer sozialen Charakterologie. 1978.

Churban; oder, Die unfassbare Gewissheit: Essays. 1979.

Nur eine Bruecke zwischen Gestern und Morgen. 1980.

Die Wirklichkeit in der Literature des 20 Jahrhunderts; Der Freiheitsgedanke in der europaeischen Literatur: Zwei Vortraege (essays and lectures). c. 1983.

Ansprachen aus Anlass der Verleihung des Friedenspreises des Deutschen Buchhandels. 1983.

Ein politisches Leben: Gespraeche mit Leonhard Reinisch (conversations originally recorded for radio). c. 1984.

Geteilte Einsamkeit: Der Autor und sein Leser. 1985.

Sein letztes Jahr. 1985.

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Critical Studies:

Pan und Apoll: Alfred Adler's Individualpsychologie, erste Uberwindung Sigmund Freuds; Franz Kreuzer im Gespraech mit Alexandra Adler, Manes Sperber, und Walter Toman by Franz Kreuzer, 1984; Manes Sperber zur Einführung by Alfred Paffenholz, 1984.

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Manés Sperber was an Austrian psychologist, author, essayist, translator, and political activist. His major work of fiction is the trilogy Like a Tear in the Ocean (1988). Originally published in his own French translation in 1951, it addresses the manner in which the spread of Fascism intersected with the exposure of the dark underbelly of Soviet Communism to sabotage and betray the hopes and philosophical beliefs of a whole generation of committed and humanitarian leftist intellectuals.

Sperber was born in 1905 in Zablotow, a Jewish shtetl in the eastern reaches of Austrian-occupied Poland. It was permeated by Hasidic mysticism, but like many similar communities, it was on that crossroads of East European cultures that also gave rise to the likes of Marc Chagal, Sholem Aleichem, and Bruno Szulc. During World War I Sperber's family sought refuge in Vienna. He felt uprooted and disenfranchised; he had become involved with a Zionist group but by 1920 formally broke with both Zionism and his faith. He was searching for something that held the promise of overcoming the poverty, suffering, and destitution he had seen while growing up and now again in Vienna. Despite giving up the formal aspects of his background, he retained its messianic thrust throughout his life.

In 1921 he was, as he put it, "discovered" by the leading psychologist Alfred Adler, under whom he then studied and whose theories of individual psychology he actively disseminated as his leading associate. He believed that Adler's theories, carried into practice, could lead to a significant improvement in the conditions of individuals and communities.

Sperber had earlier become a highly placed member of the Communist Party in Germany. His radical political ideas led to his eventual break with Adler although he never entirely abandoned his principles. In 1934 he was arrested by the Nazis and tortured, but friends and family were able to arrange his release. He quickly immigrated to France via Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia he had worked with the Communist resistance, while in France he lectured and worked as a psychologist and as an organizer for the Communist Party. He became frustrated, however, with its rigidity and increasingly sinister tendencies, and he left it for good in 1937. The final though not the sole impetus for his decision came from the infamous purges and show trials of that year. He never again joined any political organization, and his frustrations with all such organizations plays a large role in the trilogy.

Before the outbreak of the war Sperber was active in anti-Fascist activities, primarily writing and lecturing, and working for a French publisher. After serving in the disastrous campaign of 1939, he relocated to the south of France, where he began work on the first volume of the trilogy. After a period of exile in Switzerland, he returned to France, and from 1946, with the assistance of André Malraux, he found work with a major publishing house, becoming head of its foreign language division. This allowed him time to work on his own writing and facilitated the publication of his work. He only published one other strictly literary work, Der schwarze Zaun ["The Black Fence"], which came out posthumously in 1986 and was not very successful. His other writings include three volumes of autobiography, which are closely connected with the thematic material of his fiction, as well as collections of essays on political and social questions. He was awarded a number of important literary and other prizes, including, shortly before his death, the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Association.

Although the trilogy follows the spread of Fascism chronologically, and the shadow of the Holocaust falls on virtually every page, its specific events and details are not the raw material that make up most Holocaust literature. They are there, but for the most part he does not dwell on them. What is unique in Sperber's writing, as in his life, is how he interrogates the question of how, faced with unimaginable but very real evil, one can justify resistance. He rejects pacifism and nonresistance, no matter how enlightened, and essentially all competing ideologies, especially Communism. In the end he offers only a fragile belief in the inherent value of humanity and the genuine possibility of goodness.

His literary achievements have been assessed unevenly, and in general he is not viewed as a great writer. On the other hand, his work was highly valued by many of the outstanding intellectuals who were his contemporaries. He has often been compared with Arthur Koestler, although some feel he falls short of that comparison. On the other hand, Koestler spoke highly of his work, and the second volume of the trilogy is dedicated to him. Among those who were most enthusiastic about Sperber's work are Upton Sinclair and André Malraux.

—Allan Reid

See the essay on Like a Tear in the Ocean.