Postwar Germany: Charles Haldeman’s Legacy

Charles Haldeman (1931-1983) was an American novelist with German ancestors whose first novel The Sun’s Attendant: A Diptych (1963) was highly praised by the Times Literary Supple­ment and translated into many languages – except German. Only half a century later did Metrolit Verlag publish a  German edition entitled Der Sonnenwächter (2015) prompting reviews  of this roman à clef in national papers (FAZ, SZ), on radio stations (DLF, SWR, WDR), and on the Internet.

The author’s brother Richard has spent years collecting Charles’s letters, unpublished works and artifacts reconstructing his brother’s life as a writer and friend of many European and American artists. Richard Haldeman will talk about his brother’s legacy as an artist, and his wife Janice Haldeman will focus on her impressions of Germany in the aftermath of WW II when she spent three years in Frankfurt am Main as the daughter of an American occupation officer.