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Gert Niers
GERT NIERS has been a contributor to German-American literature for many years – as an author, scholar, editor, journalist, and translator. He also taught German and French (at Georgian Court Unive...view moreGERT NIERS has been a contributor to German-American literature for many years – as an author, scholar, editor, journalist, and translator. He also taught German and French (at Georgian Court University, Rowan University, Ocean County College – all in New Jersey). He was born in Dresden, Saxony, in 1943, came to the United States in 1971, and adopted U.S. citizenship in the Bicentennial year of 1976. Arrived at Last. An Immigrant Narrative, is his autobiography.
After many years of publishing journalistic and scholarly articles, Niers decided to break away from this format and to apply to his writing a more personal style suitable for autobiography and memoirs. Arrived at Last is the story of his life in Germany after World War Two and then in America, the country of his choice. He tells his autobiography in an uncomplicated, colloquial fashion – the way one would talk perhaps at a bar table surrounded by friends. This approach allows him to comment on many experiences and aspects of life. He also reminisces about his excursions into France, Belgium, and the Netherlands and later about the many people he met in the German and German-Jewish community of New York City. Everything is seen from a very personal perspective, confession-style. Still the author has rendered historical facts as precisely and correctly as it was possible to him. His descriptions and conclusions are those of an experienced observer.
His book is a contribution to minority and immigrant literature, but also a cultural commentary about life in Europe and the U.S. The first part reflects on the years of childhood, high school, and university studies until the author’s emigration to the U.S. Part two is basically an introduction to the German-American press of the 1970s and 1980s as demonstrated in the case of Aufbau and Staats-Zeitung. The third and last part of the book focuses on the consequences the author has drawn from his encounter with the German-language element in America: he offers his personal interpretation of various German-American authors. However, this autobiography or memoir – as we might as well call the narrative – is not a dry and academic presentation. It contains sufficient “light material” to keep the reader entertained.view less