Unexpected free spaces? The Reception of Marie Gevers’s Work in the ‘Third Reich’

Crombois, Julie [UCL]

This article aims to investigate the reception of Belgian French-speaking author Marie Gevers in Nazi Germany. If her success was limited compared to other Flemish authors such as Felix Timmermans, we should not deny that the translation of her works into German was in fact a surprising phenomenon, as she did not fully comply to National-Socialist literary and ideological expectations. This study looks into the processes through which she managed to be introduced into the German literary market of the time and be accepted –or rather tolerated- by the Nazi propaganda system.