Karl May
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Karl Friedrich May(25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German writer best known for his adventure novels set in the American Old West. His main protagonists are Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. May set similar books in the Orient and Middle East (in which the main protagonists were Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar), Latin America and Germany. May also wrote poetry, a play, and composed music; he was a proficient player of several musical instruments. Many of his works were adapted for film, stage, audio dramas and comics. Later in his career, May turned to philosophical and spiritual genres. He is one of the best-selling German writers of all time, with about 200 million copies worldwide.as well as composing music; he was proficient with several musical instruments. May's musical version of "Ave Maria" became very well known.
Armchair traveller
May visited North America in 1908, long after writing the novels set there, and he never travelled farther west than Buffalo, New York. He compensated successfully for his lack of direct experience with the West by a combination of creativity, imagination, and factual sources including maps, travel accounts and guide books, as well as anthropological and linguistic studies.
