THE LIFE OF COURAGE

A companion volume to Mitchell’s (equally fine) earlier translation of Grimmelshausen’s classic 1688 satire Simplicissimus, this defiantly earthy first-person narrative (which followed it closely, in 1670) contains the “confession” of the resourceful camp follower and entrepreneur who schemed and prospered throughout the carnage of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48)—and inspired the eponymous heroine of Brecht’s epic political play Mother Courage and Her Children In Grimmelshausen’s hands, Courage is a resolutely apolitical survivor: a highborn beauty brought low, who combats social and sexual disenfranchisement and victimization with a gusto that blithely negates her creator’s intermittent moralizing, and puts her in a class with Defoe’s Moll Flanders. A rich, sly entertainment.