The Aesthetics of Resistance, Volume III: A Novel Volume 3

A major literary event, the publication of the final volume of Peter Weiss’s three-volume novel The Aesthetics of Resistance makes one of the towering works of twentieth-century German literature available to English-speaking readers for the first time. Weiss’s crowning achievement, The Aesthetics of Resistance spans the period from the late 1930s to the end of World War II, dramatizing antifascist resistance and the rise and fall of proletarian political parties in Europe.

Volume III, initially published in 1981, teems with characters, many of whom are based on historical figures. It commences in May of 1940, as the narrator’s parents flee Nazi forces in Eastern Europe and reunite with their son in Sweden. While in Stockholm, the narrator and other Communist activists living in exile struggle to build structures in the German underground. The story then follows Communist resistance fighter Charlotte Bischoff as she is smuggled to Bremen on a freighter. In Berlin, she contacts the narrator’s friends and joins the Red Orchestra resistance group. Soon, the Gestapo cracks the underground group’s code, arrests a number of its members, and takes them to Plötzensee Prison, where most of them are executed. Featuring the narrator’s meditations on paintings, sculpture, and literature throughout, The Aesthetics of Resistance demonstrates the affinity between political resistance and art. Ultimately, Weiss argues that we must look to art for new models of political action and social understanding.

Peter Weiss (1916-1982) was a German playwright, novelist, filmmaker, and painter. His works include the plays Marat/Sade and The New Trial, also published by Duke University Press, and the novels The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman and The Conversation of the Three Walkers. West Germany’s most important literary award, the Georg Büchner Prize, was awarded to Weiss posthumously in 1982.

Joel Scott is a translator, editor, and writer. He is the translator of Volume II of The Aesthetics of Resistance and the author of several poetry chapbooks, the most recent being Bildverbot and Diary Farms.