Annemarie Schwarzenbach
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Annemarie Minna Renée Schwarzenbach (23 May 1908 – 15 November 1942) was a Swiss writer, journalist, photographer and traveler.
In June 1939, in an effort to combat her drug addiction and escape from the hovering clouds of violence in Europe, she embarked on an overland trip to Afghanistan with the ethnologist Ella Maillart. Maillart had "lorry-hopped" from Istanbul to India two years previously and had fond memories of the places encountered on that trip. They set off from Geneva in a small Ford car and travelled via Istanbul, Trabzon and Teheran and in Afghanistan took the Northern route from Herat to Kabul.
They were in Kabul when World War II broke out. In Afghanistan, Annemarie became ill with bronchitis and other ailments, but she still insisted on travelling to Turkmenistan. In Kabul, they split up, Maillart despairing of ever weaning her friend away from her drug addiction. They met once more in 1940 as Annemarie was boarding the ship to return her to Europe. The trip is described by Maillart in her book The Cruel Way (1947), which was dedicated to "Christina" (the name Maillart used for the late Annemarie in the book, maybe at the demand of her mother, Renée). It was made into a movie, The Journey to Kafiristan, in 2001.
She is reported to have had affairs with the Turkish Ambassador's daughter, who was suffering from tuberculosis, in Teheran and a female archaeologist in Turkmenistan. These were among the many affairs she had over the years.
After the Afghanistan trip, she travelled to the USA, where she again met her friends the Manns. With them, she worked with a committee for helping refugees from Europe. However, Erika soon decided to travel to London, which disappointed Annemarie and she soon became disillusioned with her life in the USA. In the meantime, another complication had come into her life: in a hotel, she met the up-and-coming 23-year-old writer Carson McCullers, who fell madly in love with her ("She had a face that I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life", wrote Carson). Carson's passion was not reciprocated. In fact, she was devastated at Annemarie's apparent lack of interest in her. Annemarie, who had plenty of troubles herself, knew that there was no future in a one-sided relationship and avoided meeting with Carson, but they remained friends. Later, they conducted a long and relatively tender correspondence, mainly on the subject of writing literature.
