ROMANCE BY REMARQUE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 111, 23 April 1936, Page 12

ROMANCE BY REMARQUE

Not “All Quiet on the Love Front” (From Our Special Correspondent) (By Air Mail). LONDON, March 28. Erich Maria Remarque, author of that grim war novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which sold 4,000,000 copies, has just written a love story. The author of the famous book that roused anti-war feeling the world over has been living a hermit’s life for the last four years in his villa near Locarno, Switzerland. He had great difficulty in switching his imagination from the stark realism of war to the incidents of a romantic love story. When his publishers were clamouring for the completed manuscript two years ago he declared himself dissatisfied with his work and rewrote it entirely. But now the task is done and the book will appear shortly in 13 languages simultaneously. Remarque’s rocket to fame was a romance in itself. Before publishing “All Quiet” he was a reporter on a Berlin fashion paper, and had written nothing more serious than a book of cocktail recipes.

When the Nazi Government came into power they banned Remarque’s “All Quiet....” and its sequel, “The Road Back”; and publicly burned all copies that they could find. They objected to the pacifist influence of these books.