The case of The Case of Sergeant Grischa

by Natascia Barrale

 

In 1945 Mondadori decided to republish the full version of The Case of Sergeant Grischa by Arnold Zweig. The previous edition had been published in 1930 with 140 pages eliminated from the original text. Mondadori asked the translator Enrico Burich to integrate the missing text into the old edition. Due to the insistence of the publisher and the reticence of the translator who was asked to translate the same work in two different historical-literary periods with standards, parameters and canons that were obviously very dissimilar, the retranslation of Grischa took 15 years and was finished only in 1961, with the publication of an almost full version.