Darwins Jim Knopf

Michael Ende’s Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver is one of the most popular post-war German children’s books. And up to now, there was little else to say about it. Yet Julia Voss’s fascinating and exciting treasure hunt now reveals a deeper dimension to this classic piece of children’s literature. Like a literary detective, she proves that the book is pervaded through and through with allusions to Darwin and evolution theory – there are so many, there must be a plan behind them. Voss uncovers this plan little by little, showing that Michael Ende’s book is more than a product of purely escapist fantasy.

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  • Publisher: FISCHER Taschenbuch
  • Release: 24.10.2018
  • ISBN: 978-3-596-37064-1
  • 184 Pages
  • Author: Julia Voss
Darwins Jim Knopf
Julia Voss Darwins Jim Knopf
Eray Aydin
© Eray Aydin
Julia Voss

Julia Voss , born in 1974, studied modern German literature, art history and philosophy in Freiburg, London and Berlin. She was managing editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung until 2017. Among other honours, she received the Sigmund Freud Prize for academic prose from the German Academy for Language and Poetry. Her books "Darwin's Pictures" (2007), "Darwin's Jim Knopf" (2010) and the biography "Hilma af Klint - 'To astonish humanity'" (2020) were published by S. FISCHER. Today, she teaches as an honorary professor at Leuphana University in Lüneburg and is a member of the board of the German Historical Museum. Julia Voss lives in Berlin.