Letter from Oskar Kokoschka to J.P. Hodin

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[Translation/transcription]

Villeneuve

11 July 1964

My dear Master Pepi,

For the most part this is splendid, with enough momentum and enthusiasm to elicit some lust for life from even the Germans, for whom everything is apparently non-objective, whatever they do, the zombies! Olda prepared your manuscript for the post yesterday as registered printed matter. You shall soon have it. For the final edit I'd suggest moving the somewhat tiresome descriptions of the hundreds of images to an appendix, leaving in the text just the main images and their analyses, which form a chain, as you say, as manifestations of an unbroken evolution. Abbreviate the passages where there's nothing much happening in the biography so you don't lose the irresistible momentum. Now I'm looking forward to seeing your book, which will be highly influential, particularly once it's been translated into other languages. People in Germany will be citing it for the next fifty years and they'll be kicking themselves that they've been led such a merry dance by all those impotent scribblers and dabblers! It was the same with Hitler; they only noticed the problem once papa started to feel the heat.

Please give Dr Goldscheider the letter about the London performance of Kleist's Amphitryon so he can reprint it with a reference to your life of OK in his volume of essays, which is due to be published in two years' time. This will be good propaganda for you; it was a wonderful find.

Let me hear from you and the beautyfull one soon.

Ever your dear old friend,

OK

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