Australian Friends of Karl May
The gateway to English Karl May books and the world of Karl May.
What about Karl May and Australia?
Mate...be prepared for a surprise...Karl May tells us that "He [Sir David Lindsay - 1856-1922] went to Australia on my advice to cross the continent on camels..."
and this:
When Egon Erwin Kish visits Villa Shatterhand on the 9th May, 1910, Kisch describes the interior of May’s villa and among other things the decoration of the hallway (E.E.Kisch: "Hetzjagd durch die Zeit", Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag Berlin 1994, p. 85).
“Die Diele betont allerwildestes Wildwest, betont Prairie und Indianerdorf. Mit Tigerfellen ist die Wand drapiert und mit dem Kopf eines Elentiers, Tomahawks und Bumerangs kreuzen sich, doppellaeufige Gewehre und vierschneidige Tigermesser, Lassos und Zaumzeug umschlingen Jagdtrophaen, Schirwans, Mocassins und alles Uebrige, was zur stilgemaessen Ausruestung eines ruhmreichen Trappers gehoert.”
"The hallway emphasizes the wildest of Wild West, emphasizes prairie and Indian village. The wall is draped with tiger skins and the head of an elk, tomahawks and boomerangs cross over each other, double-barreled rifles and four-edged tiger knives, lassos and horse bridles wrap around hunting trophies, oriental rugs, moccasins and anything else that is relevant to the equipment of a famous trapper."
... and did you know that there are six boomerangs in the Karl May Museum? That Karl May connection couldn't be more Australian.
Karl May has never been out of print in over 130 years, yet he is virtually unknown in the English speaking realm. Why? Karl May himself refused English translations because "Santer's son would have found Nugget-tsil and the gold treasure."
Personally, I think the gold is right under our noses...his charming, captivating, moving, awe-inspiring, thought-provoking, spirited tales of a world where humanity is shown a glimpse into the age of the 'Edelmensch', the next step in the human race's evolution where love, respect, individuality, and above all, peace, finds its due reward and recognition.
Karl May is a phenomenon unique in the literary world. From the beginning in 1875, his books have been translated into almost all European languages (some into English), and his stories recently reached Indonesia, China, Japan and other lands. Today, his books are available in around forty languages.

He created captivating, moving adventure stories in a mix of fiction and fact, which range from the quaint German folk tale, exotic fables for the young and young at heart, early titillating romances, travel memoirs, to his famous creations of the Orient with himself as the main hero Kara Ben Nemsi, and his side-kick Hadschi Halef Omar, to arguably his greatest humanistic creation of Winnetou, the Apache Chief, blood-brother of Old Shatterhand, Karl May's alter ego in the Wild West of his making.
Karl Friedrich May was born on 25 February 1842 into abject poverty as the fifth of fourteen children to Heinrich August May and Christine Wilhelmine Weise, impoverished weavers, in Saxon’s Ernstthal, Germany. Of the fourteen children, nine died under the age of two years of age. One lived to the age of twenty-five, another to forty-three. His sister Karoline Wilhelmine May lived to ninety-six and died in 1945, and Christiane Wilhelmine May was eighty-eight when she died in 1932.

Most likely attributable to the lack of Vitamin A, due to under- and mal-nourishment, Karl became blind shortly after birth and didn’t regain the use of his eyes until four years later. These first four formative years were heavily influenced by his grandmother’s colourful storytelling.

During his entire turbulent life Karl May’s sole intent and raison d’être was to write and tell the stories that his genius continually created through an imagination born out of a desperation to be a success—overcoming poverty—and to be loved. This genius ultimately resulted in almost unparalleled output of work, fame and recognition as a humanist, and saved him from oblivion, yet at the same time it also condemned him to a life of persecution through the artificially created, misconceived ideas of jealous peers and contemporaries, using transgressions committed in his youth and subsequent brushes with the law brought about by his recently recognised suffering from DID.

Yet his readers steadfastly held onto their beloved Karl May, with an instinctive knowing that persists to this day, that this writer and poet was about more than just cheap thrills and a fast buck. His heroes Old Shatterhand, Winnetou, Kara Ben Nemsi and the others delighted, entertained and educated the reader skillfully throughout the 130 years since his first tale ‘the rose of Ernstthal’ was published in 1875. This was also the year when Winnetou was first introduced to his readers.

Karl Friedrich May died on 30 March 1912 in Radebeul near Dresden, Germany, in his Villa Shatterhand, in the arms of his second wife, Auguste Wilhelmine Klara Beibler (4 July 1864 – 31 Dec 1944) from the effects of lung cancer resulting from the unfortunate habit of the times—heavy cigar smoking, and the unrelenting stress of persecution.

His work not only survives him to this day, but has flourished and steadily gained recognition around the world. One quality central to the phenomenon Karl May, and the one most likely to be responsible for the attraction and charm of his style of writing is, in my opinion, his philosophy about openness. As he states in his autobiography Mein Leben und Streben (my life and my work [sometimes translated as ‘my life and my efforts’]), 1910: “I have never tolerated corrections and abridgements. The reader shall get to know me as I am, with all my faults and weaknesses, but not like the editor has trimmed me.”


Old Shatterhand and his envisaged Wild West

Old Shatterhand is Karl May’s alter ego who travels to the ‘new world’ to find adventure and material for his books, as he states on several occasions. During his journey through the Wild West, Old Shatterhand, alias Sharlih, alias Karl May, gains the respect of not only fellow immigrants whom he meets along the way, the white Americans, but the American Indians too, in particular the Apache tribes. He becomes the blood brother of Winnetou, a noble Apache Indian chief after he saves his life, and attains the reputation of being one of the most fair, unbiased yet passionate champions for justice and a peaceful world. He turns into one of those ‘frontiersmen’ about whom incredible yarns are being told around the camp fires at night.

Through a series of novels, the reader can follow Old Shatterhand’s adventures that take him from east to west, north to south, into some of the remotest corners of the Wild West of America as it was known during the mid to late 1800’s. He meets some of the most colourful characters that corner of the world has produced and finds friendship among them that will go beyond mere acquaintance, and as far as laying down one’s life for friend and brother.

On the back of his beloved black mustang, an Apache-trained black beauty called Hatatitla, Old Shatterhand more than once escapes certain death by a hair’s breath. Together with Winnetou on his own black mustang, Iltshi, the pair has become the quintessential image that embodies the Karl May spirit.


Kara Ben Nemsi and his envisaged Orient

Known by the name of Kara Ben Nemsi, alias Karl May, the intrepid adventurer crisscrossed the entire Orient in the pursuit of adventure, learning about and from other cultures so he could write his books. He masters camels, rides a beautiful black Arabian stallion called Rih, becomes the champion of the poor and enslaved and in the process discovers a whole new meaning of life as he perceives it. His journeys take him from one exotic place to another and through his eyes we discover a world of friendship and brotherhood, but also of dangers and betrayal that requires Kara Ben Nemsi’s whole arsenal of wit and improvisation to survive the many trials of this ancient world.

His faithful side-kick who answers to the immortal and unforgettable name every boy and girl learned by heart: Hadji Halef Omar Ben Hadji Abul Abbas Ibn Hadji Dawud al Gossarah, proves his worth to Kara Ben Nemsi in his endearing and loveable manner on more than one occasion. We accompany Kara and Hadji on their travels from the Mediterranean shores through Persia, Arabia and other places that haven’t changed in thousands of years.

Friendships are formed that go beyond the superficial and transcend boundaries, beliefs and age-old hierarchical systems. With his respect for all of humanity regardless of skin colour or religious persuasion, Kara Ben Nemsi becomes a figure of the Orient known not only in the nomad tents of the tribal native Arabs, but also to the various officials of the Turkish Ottoman Empire's bureaucracy of the time.

Karl May's narrative of his adventures in what is nowadays Iraq could have been written yesterday. It is fresh and speaks to us particularly today, describing the difference between the Shiites and Sunnites. It almost seems like nothing much has changed since his times in the Arab world governed by the teaching of the Koran.
Poet, visionary, pacifist, story teller, and, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica one of the world's all-time fiction best-sellers.
Karl May and his work
Jez (short for Jezabel)
aka Iltshi and Hatatitla

AFKM's mascot

Tasmania's tallest
black drafthorse mare
†2005 aged over 30yrs
Links
Karl May and Josiah Gregg
By Marlies Bugmann

During the first week of March 2008, while researching ‘Deadly Dust’, the first half of Winnetou III, I discovered some peculiar ‘Spanish’ expressions for which I couldn’t readily find an explanation. With the help of the marvellous invention of the Internet, I made the connection to Josiah Gregg and his two-volume work Commerce Of The Prairies, a short time later.

Text comparisons, detailing how Karl May utilized Josiah Gregg's German version of Commerce Of The Prairies for his own work, now available as a free e-book.
Marlies Bugmann, the translator of several Karl May works, and her family and friends from around Australia, Europe and America are Australian Friends of Karl May. AFKM are a casual group of Karl May fans who have the same interest - Karl May, his works and his philosophy on life. The translations are Marlies' all-consuming hobby; her website features her own research, as well as the treasures unearthed by Karl May friends anywhere, links to other Karl May fan sites, Karl May films, Karl May books, Karl May news and Karl May nostalgia.
AFKM is a private group of friends, based inTasmania, Australia
WINNETOU
IN AMERICA
Bee, the smart car, with a unique numberplate, owned by Philip Colston, Karl May fan, photographed in front of historic Caroline Church in Setauket on Long Island, New York State, USA.
Winnetou and
Old Shatterhand
NEW !
The Inca's Legacy
(A South American Adventure)
In 2008, I became the first author/translator to have translated and produced the entire unabridged Winnetou trilogy from Karl May's last authorised version of 1909; it is the first publishing of the unabridged trilogy as a homogeneous work by a single translator in English (including editing and proof reading, design and formatting, as well as cover art). Winnetou is also, for the first time, printed and distributed in Australia, making it the first tangible connection between Karl May and Australia. This edition is entirely, and proudly, made in Australia.
Adventure Novels by Karl May

Karl May studied to become a teacher, received qualification, only to lose his license to teach because of unrelated matters. Once a teacher, always a teacher; Karl May was no exception—he was being a teacher to ‘his students’ (hence the German designation of ‘Jugenderzaehlungen’ for the following eight adventure novels) disguised behind such characters as doctor Morgenstern, Hobble-Frank and many others, on subjects ranging from pre-history to Latin, culture, geography, music, literature and other subjects. The ‘whacky’ characters in Karl May’s adventure novels had the roles of being ‘teachers by way of fun’.

Karl May’s writing career spanned thirty-six years. He wrote around eighty novels during that time, of which only eight are ‘Jugenderzaehlungen’. The eight adventure novels were written and published within a ten-year period from 1887 to 1897:

Der Sohn des Bärenjägers (1887)
Der Geist des Llano estakado (1888)
Kong-Kheou, das Ehrenwort (Der blaurote Methusalem) (1888/89)
Die Sklavenkarawane (1889/90)
Der Schatz im Silbersee (1890/91)
Das Vermächtnis des Inka (1891/92)
Der Ölprinz (1893/94)
Der schwarze Mustang (1896/97)

The eight adventure novels are distinguishable from all other novels not only by their designation, but also by their POV—their third person narrative voice. They were published in weekly sequels (as was the fashion) for one publication only, Der Gute Kamerad (The Good Comrade), a periodical aimed at young teenage boys, before they were published in book form. Der Gute Kamerad was an ‘incomparably fresh and skilfully edited publication that was significantly ahead of its time with regard to the concept of education in May’s era’ (Hans Wollschläger). Those eight novels are the only novels May wrote for Der Gute Kamerad, the only ones specifically aimed at young teenage readers, or young students, and form a unique series of historical publications. At the same time, they count among May’s best work and, thus. the intricacies of various German dialects, as well as the correct depiction of the disguised ‘home work’ for students, require careful consideration when translating them into another language.

Gustavo Rojo
Played Winnetou
in Berlin; acted in
several Karl May
movies; more than seventy years of acting career.

Reiner Boller's bio-
graphy of the sim-
patico and famous
actor -- the 1001
adventures of his
life --  is now available.
(German only)
2012
Endzeit und Neuanfang
The latest work, delving into the knowledge of the Mayan Civilization, by
Walter-Jörg Langbein,
Karl May aficionado and best-selling German author. He travels the world in search of answers to the great mysteries on our planet--and beyond.
Available now
(German only)