Edschmid, Kasimir, pseudonym and from 1947 official name of Eduard Schmid (Darmstadt, 1890-1966, Vulpera, Switzerland). He studied French language and literature at various European universities before turning to journalism and authorship, beginning his copious œuvre with a number of Novellen (Die sechs Mündungen, 1915; Das rasende Leben, 1915/16). Influenced by Neo-Romanticism and Nietzsche, these showed him to be an uncompromising exponent of Expressionism (see Expressionismus), whose most eloquent theorist he became with his treatise Über den Expressionismus in der Literatur und die neue Dichtung (1919). His total rejection of realism in favour of a visionary style exploring all spheres of experience also characterizes the Novellen Timur (1916), Die Fürstin (1918), Frauen (1922), and the novels Die achatnen Kugeln (1920) and Der Engel mit dem Spleen (1923), after which he reached out for a wider public. With Sport um Gagaly (1928), on bicycle racing, he wrote the first German novel introducing sport as a literary subject. Other works include the biographical novels Lord Byron (1929), Wenn es Rosen sind, werden sie blühen (1950, as Georg Büchner. Eine deutsche Revolution, 1966), and Der Marschall und die Gnade (1954, on Simon Bolivar). Particularly noteworthy are his travel books; based on his own journeys, they include Basken, Stiere, Araber (1927), Afrika, nackt und angezogen (1930), Glanz und Elend Südamerikas (1931), Zauber und Größe des Mittelmeers (1932, ext. as Stille und Stürme am Mittelmeer, 1959), Italien (5 vols., 1935-48, as a trilogy 1955-7), and Bunte Erde (1948, as Europäisches Reisebuch, 1953). Later essays include Frühe Manifeste. Epochen des Expressionismus (1957) and Lebendiger Expressionismus (1961). A volume of diaries, Tagebuch 1958-1960, appeared in 1961; Frühe Satiren 1917-1920 in 1960, Die frühen Erzählungen in 1965, and Frühe Schriften, ed. E. Johann, in 1970. Awarded the Büchner Prize in 1927, Edschmid was harassed by the National Socialist regime, being banned from public speaking in 1933 and from publishing in 1941. From 1950 he was successively General Secretary, Vice-President, and Honorary President of the (West) German PEN Centre.

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