The blue stain : a novel of a racial outcast / Hugo Bettauer ; edited and with an introduction by Peter Höyng ; translated by Peter Höyng and Chauncey J. Mellor ; afterword by Kenneth R. Janken.

Author
Bettauer, Hugo, 1872-1925 [Browse]
Uniform title
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
  • Rochester, New York : Camden House, [2017]
  • ©2017
Description
1 online resource (xxxiii, 146 pages.)

Available Online

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Subject(s)
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Translator
Writer of supplementary content
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Related work(s)
Series
Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture [More in this series]
Summary note
"Hugo Bettauer's The Blue Stain, a novel of racial mixing and "passing," starts and ends in Georgia but also takes the reader to Vienna and New York. First published in 1922, the novel tells the story of Carletto, son of a white European academic and an African-American daughter of former slaves, who, having passed as white in Europe and fled to America after losing his fortune, resists being seen as "black" before ultimately accepting that identity and joining the early movement for civil rights. Never before translated into English, this is the first novel in which a German-speaking European author addresses early twentieth-century racial politics in the United States--not only in the South but also in the North. There is an irony, however: while Bettauer's narrative aims to sanction a white/European egalitarianism with respect to race, it nevertheless exhibits its own brand of racism by asserting that African Americans need extensive enculturation before they are to be valued as human beings. The novel therefore serves as a unique historical account of transnational and transcultural racial attitudes of the period that continue to reverberate in our present globalized world."-- Provided by publisher.
Notes
Translated from the German.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (pages xxxii-xxxiii).
Reproduction note
Electronic reproduction. New York Available via World Wide Web.
Source of description
Description based on print version record.
ISBN
  • 9781787440876 (electronic bk.)
  • 1787440877 (electronic bk.)
Other standard number
  • 40027281268
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