When the World Outlawed War has been translated into German. Now we need a German publisher.
About the translator:
Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer
Born ´61 in Germany, finished school with the Abitur, did studies in politics and medicine and a vocational training as a masseur. Drove a cab in four cities, in three countries, France will be next. Began writing in 2001, written 6 books, translated 5, (not counting this one) one of which was a yet unauthorized version to the Hitch-Hiker´s Guide to the Galaxy, first written in German.
Wants to dedicate his ongoing cab-world-record to the unification of cab-drivers in Europe or world-wide for a better image and working conditions and of course to peace and collaboration in Europe and elsewhere.
“I had always been against war. My father had been dragged to the Eastern Front in 1943, put in a uniform and been told to shoot or die. After that, he spent two years in a prisoner camp near Leningrad, where he had been only released, because it looked he was going to die anyway. I have been a conscious objector and did not do military service, although there was a general conscription in Germany at the time. I was born and raised in Heilbronn, a town in the south of Germany, which was surrounded by three huge American army installations, 10.000 US-soldiers plus dependents in the town. When I was a kid, I was sent to a youth camp on the Waldheide, above town, just a few hundred meters away from one of Europe´s biggest Pershing II facilities and I grew up in the knowledge that if there would be a nuclear war it would go fast, for we are one of the biggest targets for the Soviets.
When I was a cab-driver in Heilbronn, in `85, half of my customers were Americans, most of the time in uniform, from one barrack to another. Two good episodes about that: it could happen, when you asked questions about the barracks just out of curiosity and to have a little chit-chat, you´d be taken as a spy and then that one time, when a soldier left his “Pershing II manual” in my cab and I just sat there and waited till he returned and grabbed it, in a mixture of annoyed embarrassment.”
Links to blogs in German and English:
http://jochenlembke.wordpress.com/ (German)
http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/ (English)