''Unterm Birnbaum'' (English: ''Under the Pear Tree'') is a

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...

written in 1885 by

Theodor Fontane Theodor Fontane (; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language Literary realism, realist author. He published the first of his novels, for which he i ...

. It is a crime story in which the reader knows from the outset who commits a murder and why. While the details of the murder event itself remain mysterious, the narrative focuses on what others think happened, how a small town's community opinion vacillates over time, and how the community's opinions affect the perpetrators. The reader cannot easily predict whether the murderers will ever be caught.

Inspiration

As with some other of Fontane's works such as ''

Effi Briest ''Effi Briest'' () is a realist novel by Theodor Fontane. Published in book form in 1895, ''Effi Briest'' marks both a watershed and a climax in the poetic realism of literature. It can be thematically compared to other novels on 19th-century m ...

'' and ''

Beyond Recall ''Beyond Recall'' is the twenty-third album by German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze, released in June 1991 by Virgin Records' subsidiary label Venture Records. This is the second of seven early-1990s Klaus Schulze albums not to be reissu ...

'', the plot was patterned roughly around a real event reported years before the novella was written and that Fontane had read about. The majority of the novel consists of richly nuanced conversations among the town's denizens about the married couple at the center of the controversy.

Adaptations for audio and film

In Germany, this crime story has been made into an audio drama more than half a dozen times, and it has been adapted for film or television at least five times: * 1945: Der stumme Gast, Verfilmung der UFA von Harald Braun mit René Deltgen als Matthias (entspricht Abel) und Gisela Uhlen als Lisa (entspricht Ursel) * 1963: Unterm Birnbaum, Fernseh-Verfilmung des WDR von Gerhard Klingenberg mit Heinz Reincke als Abel und Eva Lissa als Ursel * 1964: Unterm Birnbaum, Fernseh-Verfilmung der ARD von Mark Lawton mit Paul Esser als Abel und Agnes Fink als Ursel * 1973: Unterm Birnbaum, Verfilmung der DEFA von Ralf Kirsten mit Erik S. Klein als Abel und Angelika Domröse als Ursula * 2019: Unterm Birnbaum, Fernseh-Verfilmung für das ZDF, Regie Uli Edel, Drehbuch Léonie-Claire Breinersdorfer, mit Fritz Karl als Abel und Julia Koschitz als Ursel

English translation

For English readers, there has been a translation ("Under the Pear Tree"), translated by Patricia Piney, available since 2010.''Under the Pear Tree'' translated by Patricia Tiney; Huddersfield : Belgarun, 2009 (print-on-demand);

References

{{Theodor Fontane German novellas 1885 novels 19th-century German novels Novels by Theodor Fontane