Hein Semke - A Voz Interior

Die innere Stimme (The Inner Voice), the title chosen for the book, is the title given by HEIN SEMKE to a work in cement, dated 1933. The figure, about 80 cm high, represents a prophet or apostle with his right hand cupped to his ear; with his left hand he presses a small book with an incised cross against his chest. Someone listening to what is going on inside.

Aus dem Tagebuch (Excerpts from the Diary), the subtitle, indicates that it is not the complete diary. The presentation of two time blocks separated by a considerable interval: 1950-52 and 1956-61, was not the result of a choice but of the force of circumstances.
In the known literary estate of HEIN SEMKE, the earlier writings, from 1929 to 1949, consist, with the exception of one or two diary entries, a few short stories, and a brief autobiography published in Portuguese in 1935, of thoughts, aphorisms, and poems. Only in 1950 did he begin a diary, which he kept regularly until 1965 and then irregularly until 1994. Written on loose sheets and mainly in notebooks, some of them have disappeared. This is the case with those corresponding to the period from October 30, 1952, to August 10, 1956. It is also the case with those corresponding to the period from October 9, 1961, to April 30, 1965, these given by the artist to Karin Schwab Simpson and probably destroyed. We know about Semke's youth from what he recounts in the autobiographical novel Hannes, der Rammer (Hannes the Stonemason), written between 1950 and 1952 and centered on the years 1918-19, and, more indirectly, in the novella Der ‘Halleluja’-Ben (The Ben-‘Hallelujah’), from June 1950 – both unpublished.