Swiss Review 2/2021

Swiss Review / April 2021 / No.2 12 Few other authors – and certainly no female authors – have been studied as much as An- nemarie Schwarzenbach or had as much written or published about them in the last 100 years of Swiss literature as she has. There is an enduring fascination with the Zurich-born travel journalist, writer, and photographer who toured the globe in the 1930s – on account of her extraordinary, tragic life, her difficult family history, her exotic itineraries, her homosexuality and her drug addiction. Whereas literary friends such as Erika and Klaus Mann sought exile in America from 1933 onwards, Schwarzen- bach left home in the opposite direction to visit countries that included Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, the Soviet Union, and Belgian Congo. Her travels were frequently an at- tempt to escape from her bourgeois, Na- zi-sympathising family, from traditional gender roles, and from drugs and depression. Although Schwarzenbach saw herself pri- marily as a writer (she penned around 300 journalistic, feuilleton-style pieces docu- menting the social and political upheaval and unrest of the period leading up toWorld War II), the “Departure without Destination” exhibition at the Paul Klee Centre in Berne is dedicated to her previously unknown photographic work. The Rolleiflex camera, known for its square-format photography, was Schwarzenbach’s faithful travel com- panion, taking pictures that depict her view of the world back then. EVA HIRSCHI Photos taken from the Swiss Literary Archives of the Swiss National Library in Berne; estate of Annemarie Schwarzenbach 1 2 Images Lonely freedom