The Gushing Spring

The Gushing Spring (original German title Ein springender Brunnen) is a long autobiographical novel by the German writer Martin Walser, published in 1998. It won the 1998 German Book Trade Peace Prize, and its title comes from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Set in the small town of Wasserburg on Lake Constance, the novel consists of three parts, each narrating an episode in the childhood, adolescence, and youth of the protagonist Johann, spanning roughly 1932 to 1945, the darkest period of German history. Johann's family runs a restaurant and inn in Wasserburg. His father, a cultured, poetic man, is seriously ill and given to grand schemes; to escape his difficulties he has raised silver foxes and gone into partnership to manufacture so-called magnetic therapy devices, all in vain. His practical mother, to keep the family afloat and the business going, joined the Nazi Party in 1932. Beneath the quiet surface of small-town daily life, the political atmosphere grows increasingly polarized: the frenzy over Hitler's rise, flag ceremonies, the youth league, war and refugees—all seep step by step into ordinary people's fates. Johann helps out in his mother's restaurant and delivers coal for the villagers; he is friends with Adolf, who comes from a Nazi family, secretly loves Anita, an Austrian girl in the circus, secretly writes poetry in the youth league, and resolutely sides with the victims when Nazis attack the circus. Later he is drafted, endures a brief spell as a prisoner of war, and returns home to find his brother dead on the battlefield, while he himself comes of age through love and loss. Written from a boy's perspective, in dialect and in unquoted 'character prose,' the novel is regarded, alongside The Tin Drum and The German Lesson, as one of the German novels that reflect on the Nazi era through a child's eyes; because it does not directly address Auschwitz, it provoked long-lasting controversy in Germany after publication. The 2016 Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House edition was translated by Wei Maoping and included in the 'Martin Walser Works' series.