Ambivalence and Cigarettes: Egon Erwin Kisch's "At Ford's Place in Detroit," with a Translation of the Text

Abstract

Resdess, curious, and captivating, Egon Erwin Kisch was known during years between past century's two world wars as the raging reporter1 for his part in development of reportage, a form of journalism based on fact, but as inviting and stylized as fiction. Kisch was born into a large German-speaking Jewish community in Prague, then a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1885; and he died of a heart attack in that same Prague, now communist and almost entirely Czech-speaking, in 1948. He began his journalism career by writing compelling and distinctively intrigue-oriented newspaper sketches of his native city, but before long his burning resdessness incited him to travel. The 1920s and 1930s found energetic, left-leaning reporter exploring young Soviet Union, North Africa, United States, Soviet Central Asia, China, Australia, and Spain, where he covered Spanish Civil War.2 Kisch's expulsion from Berlin by Nazi officials in 1933 heightened his sympathy for and involvement with German antifascist and antimilitarist ?migr? cultural circles, and his daring stunts and exhortations to rally for freedom and independence earned him praise among communists throughout world. Kisch socialized with Charlie Chaplin in California. He hunted tigers in Afghanistan. When his entry into Australia in 1934 was impeded by cautious German diplomats, Kisch leapt from ocean liner and, broken leg and all, participated in