<
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/feb/08/rediscovered-a-young-english-novelists-warning-of-the-nazi-threat>
"Sally Carson was not an oracle or a prophet, just a young woman from Dorset,
born in 1901. Yet she foresaw a dark and violent future for Europe and gave
voice to those fears in a 1934 novel that is now being hailed as “an
electrifying masterpiece”.
Carson’s book,
Crooked Cross, predicted the scale of the Nazi threat and is
to be republished for the first time this spring, ahead of the 80th anniversary
of the end of the second world war. Controversial in its day, her novel had to
tread a careful path to avoid the accusation that it was alarmist about the
Führer’s aims. A stage adaptation was even censored, shorn of all its “Heil
Hitlers”.
The novel tells the story of a German family struggling in an uncertain
economy, but looking forward to the marriage of their daughter, Alexa, to a
young doctor – that is, until his Jewish background jeopardises their
engagement.
Taking its title from the shape of the swastika,
Crooked Cross was
immediately recognised as essential reading and widely praised, including in
the pages of the
Observer of July 1934, where Gerald Gould judged it “a very
good novel” that avoids any “propagandist tendency” by letting “the story stand
on its merits”. Reading the manuscript last year, the contemporary author
Rachel Joyce described it as an “electrifying masterpiece”.
Despite its involving depiction of pre-war Germany, where Carson had spent
time,
Crooked Cross had been consigned to the cultural archives. Then it was
rediscovered by the biographer and founder of Persephone Books, Nicola Beauman.
“Once she’d tracked down a rare remaining copy she was struck that such an
extraordinary and important novel could have been lost to history,” a
spokesperson for the publisher said this weekend. “To have the opportunity to
rescue this literary masterpiece from being entirely lost is an immense
privilege. As the lessons history has taught us seem worryingly close to being
forgotten, now feels like the right time to share it with the world.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
