Feuchtwanger, Lion

(1884–1958)

   German novelist. Born in Munich, Feuchtwanger was a prolific author of popular books, chiefly on historical subjects, works notable for strong narrative and a colourful sense of period. Several of his books explore Jewish history, ancient and modern. Feuchtwanger came from an Orthodox family and studied philosophy as a young man. He began to write plays, three of them in collaboration with Ber-told Brecht, but did not receive much notice until the publication in 1925 of his best- seller, Jud Süss, a novel about Joseph OPPENHEIMER, the 18-century court Jew. He consolidated this success with several other historical novels; in the 1930s he was chiefly at work on a trilogy about the ancient Jewish historian, JOSEPHUS.

   When HITLER came to power, Feuchtwanger was out of Germany and he never returned. He went first to France where, in 1940, the Vichy government put him in a concentration camp. He escaped and made his way to America, where he settled. In the United States he seemed to forget the more bitter years of exile and wrote novels on such different historical figures as Benjamin Franklin, Goya, Rousseau and Jephta. His books were translated into many languages. He is mainly remembered for his large best-sellers, such as Proud Destiny (1947), This Is the Hour (1952), and Raquel, the Jewess of Toledo (1955).