Zurich's literary landmarks

Sunday 22 April was cold and very wet, but 24 ZIWA Discoverers were not deterred from tracking down some of the city's literary landmarks. Bill Hovey, well-known teacher and historian, took the group of members and their partners to explore just a few of the places where famous writers and historical figures passed their time. The runners in the Zurich Marathon probably enjoyed their city tour rather less.

First stop, Cafe Odeon near Bellevue, celebrating its centenary. The pavement tables were empty but the inside is always a cosy place to enjoy a drink. James Joyce, Lenin, Mata Hari and others passed this way, but today we focused on Erich Maria Remarque, a German who later regarded Switzerland as his home and died in Locarno, and used Zurich as the setting for some of his works. Bill read us an extract from All Quiet on the Western Front, his 1929 novel about the futility of war which was later turned into a successful film, but ultimately led to his exile.

Round the corner to the Kronenhalle, a haven for artists and writers at the turn of the century, where artists such as Chagall, Giacometti and Picasso exchanged art works for a hot meal. James Joyce and his wife Nora were also regulars, and after the Irish writer died, the landlady offered his widow cheap meals; nowadays, the venue is definitely up-market but original artworks still grace the walls. Then we progressed up Raemistrasse towards the Kunsthaus, past plaques dedicated to Johanna Spyri, the creator of Heidi, who moved from her home town of Hirzel to settle in the city, and Richard Wagner, who enjoyed his visits to Zurich and the nearby Sihlwald area which inspired his masterwork, The Ring cycle.

Pausing outside the Kunsthaus, we looked across to the modern restaurant Terroir, formerly the Pfauen (Peacock) and another favourite of Joyce's, who was nevertheless know locally as Herr Satan. The next door Schauspielhaus, still know as the Pfauen, often stages plays by Berthold Brecht who fled Germany to Zurich in 1933. After living in the US during World War II, he returned to Zurich during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. His play, A Life of Galileo, had its first perfomance in the Zurich theatre in 1943. Bill Hovey read us an extract from his work. We also heard a few lines from Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, a novel set in Zurich which refers to the Cafe Odeon and other landmarks. The contemporary American writer John Irving has also read at the theatre from  his own book Until I Find You, a chapter of which was set in Zurich.

Progressing along Hirschengraben we reached Spiegelgasse 14, where Lenin lived as a lodger from 1916-17, and where he hoped that Switzerland would be the seat of his planned revolution. A plaque marks the house; the Russian writer and exile Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn wrote his story in Lenin in Zurich. Apparently when the central library was closed on a Thursday, Lenin and his wife Nadia would walk along the Zurichberg together. Nearby is another plaque to Georg Buchner, the German dramatist and author of Woyzeck, who also died in Zurich.

Along Spiegelgasse past the Cabaret Voltaire, the home of the short-lived Dada movement, whose final performance in 1919 was held at the Zurich Kaufleuten. We learnt that Dadaist Tristan Tzara met Lenin and Joyce in Zurich and their meeting is described in Tom Stoppard's play, Travesties. Then we passed the former Franziskaner Hotel, where Lenin's Skittleclub met; it's now known as Henrici's and the location of ZIWA's current Wednesday-evening Stammtisch. Brief mention was also made of famous German visitors Goethe and Thomas Mann, who is buried in Kilchberg, and whose daughter Erica Mann founded the Pfeffermuehle group at the Hotel Hirschen.

We crossed the Limmat by the Rathausbruecke and heard about the Swiss Renaissance physician Paracelsus, born in Einsiedeln, who met the reformer Bullinger at the Hotel Storchen to ask for money for new treatments:  opposite is the D&G building which in an earlier life hosted Casanova, the famous womaniser. At James Joyce Corner at the corner of Augustinergasse and Glockengasse, we heard that Joyce worked here on his major novel Ulysses, and after he died in Zurich in 1941, was buried in Fluntern cemetary. In Rennweg we paused by an anonymous building which was a the site of a former home to Richard Wagner. Finally, as the sun appeared, we turned into the Bahnhofstrasse and the St. Gotthard hotel, where James Joyce also stayed when his eyesight was failing, which inspired him to write a short poem named after the famous street.

Bill Hovey can be contacted at the following address:






Bill Hovey's Fleet of Foot Zurich Tours, carmencrenshawhovey@yahoo.com

Learn more about ZIWA's Discovering Zurich and Switzerland group's actvities on the online calendar at www.ziwa.com