There is no doubt that the poet Erich Farid is the poet par excellence of penetrating political taboos. He healed the wound of Nazi German history before it healed, and then stopped for a long time in the face of the crimes of the American army in Vietnam, before he, as a Jew, broke through the Israeli taboo in his book, “Listen, O Israel” (1974), which brought him resentment and defamation. He was sometimes described as “a defender of Hitler.” At other times, he is an “anti-Semitic Jew” and a “traitor to his family.”
In “And We Laughed Sometimes,” Fred opens his memoirs, talking about his childhood and early youth in Austria and his London exile. These memories reveal how a shy boy who suffered from a physical disability became a bold poet who was not afraid of anyone or anything. The most important thing that distinguishes him is honesty and avoiding exaggeration, even when he performs heroic deeds.
Arish Farid was born in Vienna in 1921 to a wealthy family. He began writing while he was in high school. He was also a member of a children’s acting troupe until the Nazi forces entered Austria in 1938, transforming him from an Austrian high school student into a persecuted Jew. His father was killed by the Gestapo, and he succeeded. Fred fled to London, and in the following months he was able to save his mother and more than seventy people.
In London, Farid joined the Communist Youth Club, but he left it in 1944 due to the outbreak of Stalinism in it. In the same year, his first collection of poems, “Germany,” appeared. In 1966, his poetry collection, “Vietnam and...” appeared, which sparked great controversy in the following years. Farid did not stop taking sharp stances against...
Media monopolies, Stalinist repression, and Israeli policies towards Arabs and Palestinians, created many enemies for him.
Farid gained fame and major literary prizes after he was over sixty. In 1988, Erich Farid died while on a reading trip, and was buried in London.
