Winnetou, Old Shatterhand, Intschu-tschuna, Nscho-tschi, Kara Ben Nemsi, Hadschi Halef Omar – these are probably not words which you would associate with Germany. Yet, as soon as I saw them the other day, I was transferred back to my childhood as these are characters from some of my favourite books written by Karl May. Karl May, born on the 25th February 1842 and died 30th March 1912, was a very interesting German writer. The stories I read were about the Wild West or the Far East and they were written so well, I thought I was there. Surprisingly, Karl May only once left Germany and that was to visit Egypt.
Have you read any? I noticed that there are English translations, although I have never heard anybody in the UK talk about Karl May books (of course, maybe I just know the wrong people 😉 )
As Karl May has died over 100 years ago, the stories don’t have any copyright anymore and are available free now. Free Kindle versions are available on amazon, or on Project Gutenberg there are three of his books downloadable to read or listen to, or read online.
Some of the films can be found on Youtube. I’ll leave you with the trailer from the first Winnetou film, which has brought back many memories for me (the whole film has disappeared from YouTube).
Happy Birthday, Karl 😉
