A moral icon as racist: New Harper Lee novel shocking the USA – Tiroler Tageszeitung Online

New York (APA / dpa) – Atticus Finch is such a thing as the moral conscience of the United States. The always friendly and as a lawyer defended in the international bestseller published in 1960, “To Kill a Mockingbird” an accused unjustly of rape African American – and granted while both his children Jem and Scout as well as an entire country a lesson in tolerance, charity and human rights. ” / p>

For countless Americans the fictional character was for decades as a kind of perfect man and role model. To be happy they had read more of him, but author Harper Lee, the “To Kill a Mockingbird” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for, refused steadfastly any other publication – until now. With “Go Set a Watchman” (“Go, set a watchman”) after more than 50 years the first time a book of the 89-year-old and health ailing writer published.

According to the original English version on Tuesday is the German version on Friday in the bookstores. Written Lee has the novel, however, before “To Kill a Mockingbird” – it is a kind of first draft of the international bestseller. The manuscript was considered lost for decades and has been recently rediscovered.

Even before the publication of the novel was as eagerly awaited literary sensation. At first reading, many critics and fans showed however shocked: “Go, set a watchman” is settled “To Kill a Mockingbird” about 20 years after. Scout is a young woman who now Jean Louise called and lives in New York. Her brother Jem’s dead father Atticus Finch -. And is probably the biggest shock for most fans – has become the racists who attends a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan and expresses derogatory remarks about African American

<. p> language, structure and time and again wit the book leaves no doubt that Lee is the author. As “To Kill a Mockingbird” is also “Go, set a watchman” fluently written and engaging, and affects more than half a century later, no yellowed little. The completely changed constellation of the main characters but, sorrow for “disturbing”, “disturbing” and “disorienting” reading, wrote the “New York Times”.

The book begins with the fact that Jean Louise by train from New York travels to Alabama to visit Atticus and her boyfriend Henry Clinton. But the encounters they sadden – partly because her father is in poor health, and secondly, because both her father and her boyfriend are in favor of a separation of blacks and whites, the Jean Louise decided rejects

“Go place a guard” raises many questions. How could this manuscript from the international bestseller is “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which carries a quite different message in itself? The new book will probably change image and legacy of the beloved classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” and by author Lee surmised the “New York Times”. On the other hand it must also be taken first and still more closely. “Without a doubt there will be in the coming years countless school essays and scientific essays about it.”