Jakob Wassermann, Il mio cammino di tedesco e di ebreo e altri saggi

In his autobiographical account “My way as a Jew and as a German”, published 1921, Jakob Wassermann recalls his life and his most important works in the light of his conflicting identity as a German Jew. Though he is conscious of his jewish roots, he vindicates his role in German culture and literature, by stressing his deep sense of belonging to the language and landscape which build up his homeland. The writer is however fully conscious of the limits of a perfect conciliation between Jews and Germans that was the goal of the Enlightenment. and of the end of this dream. The sharp awareness of the lack of prospects of German Judaism dealing with the rise of a blind antisemitism, based on foolish racial theories, makes of this book a unique and invaluable, sad but not resigned document of the harsh reality that characterised German-Jewish relationships especially in the decade before Hitler came to power.