Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, also known under the pseudonym John Grane (1915-1942), was a German author. It was in Norway that Boschwitz wrote his first novel, People with Life, which was first published in Swedish as Människor utfør, in 1937. From Sweden, he and his mother moved to Luxembourg, France and Belgium, before ending up in Britain in 1939. Just before the start of the war, Boschwitz was interned in England as an „enemy alien“ despite his Jewish origin and taken to Australia, where he was in a camp until 1942. On his way back, his ship torpedoed a German submarine. Boschwitz died at the age of 27, and his last manuscript probably sank with him. In Belgium or Luxembourg, in response to the horrors of Kristallnacht, he wrote The Passenger, which was published in English as The Man Who Took Trains (1939) in the United States and The Fugitive (1940) in the United Kingdom. However, in the 2010's book was rediscovered and published under the title The Traveler. Posthumously, after the re-release of The Traveler in 2021, Boschwitz was compared to John Buchan, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Böll and Hans FalladUlrich Alexander Boschwitz, born in Berlin in 1915, emigrated with his mother to Scandinavia in 1935, where his first novel was published. The success enabled him to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. During longer stays in Belgium and Luxembourg, he wrote “The Passenger”, which was published in England in 1939 and a little later in the USA and France. Shortly before the start of the war, Boschwitz was interned in England as an “enemy alien” despite his Jewish background and taken to Australia, where he was put in a camp until 1942. On the return journey, his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine and sank. Boschwitz died at the age of 27, his last manuscript probably sank with him.

Image source: The Guardian/Leo Baeck Institute