Edward Dahlberg

Edward Dahlberg (July 22, 1900 – February 27, 1977) was an American novelist, essayist and autobiographer.[1]

Background

Edward Dahlberg was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Elizabeth Dahlberg. Together, mother and son led a vagabond existence until 1905 when she operated the Star Lady Barbershop in Kansas City. Edward was sent to a Catholic Orphanage in Kansas City at the age of six for one year. In April 1912, Dahlberg was sent to the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Cleveland, Ohio where he lived until 1917. He eventually attended the University of California, Berkeley (1922–23) and Columbia University (B.S. in philosophy. 1925).[2]

Career

Dahlberg enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I. He lost the use of an eye after being struck with a rifle butt. World War I. In the late 1920s, Dahlberg became part of the expatriate group of American writers living in Paris. His first novel, Bottom Dogs, was based on his childhood experiences at the orphanage and his travels in the American West; it was published in London with an introduction by D.H. Lawrence. With his advance money, Dahlberg returned to New York City and resided in Greenwich Village. He visited Germany in 1933 where he wrote anti-Nazi articles for the London Times and counseled many German intellectuals, Jews, communists and anarchists to flee Germany or they would be murdered by Hitler. His public denunciation of Hitler had consequences. Edward was attacked by a burly Nazi Storm Trooper in a Berlin Cafe. The Nazi was a young butcher's apprentice. To the surprise of the onlookers and the young Nazi, Edward fought the large Storm Trooper and did not yield until the German Police broke up the fight. Edward was a seasoned street fighter and the Nazi was not. This attack on an American Citizen and journalist writing for the London Times was front page news around the world. It was an attack on the freedom of the press. Hitler sent a personal note of apology to Edward and the Storm Trooper was arrested. Edward felt the Storm Trooper had suffered enough humiliation and did not press charges. In 1934 he published the first American anti-Nazi novel, Those Who Perish. From the 1940s onwards, Dahlberg made his living as an author and also taught at various colleges and universities. From 1944-1948 he taught at Boston University. In 1948, he taught briefly at the experimental Black Mountain College. He was replaced on the staff by his friend and fellow author, Charles Olson.[3]

He was an expatriate writer of the 1920s in Paris, where he knew Joyce, Beckett, O'Casey, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Yeats, D.H. Lawrence and many others. A proletarian novelist of the 1930s, a spokesman for a fundamental humanism in the 1940s. He was an important member and editor for the Stieglitz Group which promoted human rights all over the world. He spoke out against the mistreatment of African Americans, Indigenous Americans, (Native Americans), Jews, immigrants, and workers. He was jailed three or four times for standing up to inhumanity. For a number of years, Dahlberg devoted himself to literary study. His extensive readings of the works of Dante, Shakespeare, Thoreau and many others resulted in a writing style quite different from the social realism that characterized his earlier writing.

He moved to the Danish island of Bornholm in 1955 while working on The Flea of Sodom. The Sorrows of Priapus was published in 1957, becoming his most successful book thus far. He later moved to Sóller, on Mallorca, while working on Because I Was Flesh, an autobiography which was published in 1964. During the 1960s and 1970s, he became quite prolific and further refined his unique style through the publication of poetry, autobiographical works, fiction and criticism.[4] He also lived in Dublin and Wicklow, London, Madrid, Malaga, Mexico City and the Seychelles.

Personal life

In 1942 he married Winifred Donlea O'Carroll. Winifred had two children from her previous marriage to the writer and professor Harry Thornton Moore. The children are Col. Brian D. Moore, USMC, Ret. and Sharon Moore Peirce. Edward and Winifred had two children, Geoffrey Dahlberg and Kevin O'Carroll. There are three grand children, Kathleen O'Carroll, Bridget O'Carroll and Fiona O'Carroll.

He then married R'lene LaFleur Howell, the 6th of his seven wives. In 1968 he married his longtime mistress, Julia Lawlor from County Cavan, Ireland. Edward, Rlene and Julia resided in Dublin for a number of years in the early 1960s to the early 1970s. Edward was an important member of an Irish literary group that met at McDaid's Pub near Trinity College, Dublin. Members of this group included Frank O'Connor, Brendan and Dominic Behan, Patrick Kavanagh, James Liddy, Garech Browne, Patrick Galvin and occasionally Frank McCourt and many others with music often provided by The Dubliners. In 1968, he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1976, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.[5] Dahlberg died in Santa Barbara, California, on February 27, 1977.

Selected works

References

  1. ↑ Oxford Companion to American Literature Hart JD and Leininger PW,(Oxford University Press: 1995)
  2. ↑ "Edward Dahlberg Biography" at Net Industries
  3. ↑ In the 1960's he taught at the University of Missouri and at Columbia University. He also lectured for the BBC. "Edward Dahlberg", Encyclopaedia Judaica
  4. ↑ "Biography on Edward Dahlberg", Dictionary of Literary
  5. ↑ "Edward Dahlberg. 1976, Fiction", John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

Other sources

External links

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