Paul Maar’s Sams: a Revolutionary Bestseller in German Children’s Literature and its Polish Rendition

Paul Maar (born in 1937) is one of the most important modern German writers for children and young people. He is widely known for his bestselling series of books about Sams (1973) – a strange creature – a mixture of a child, a monkey and a pig that can grant wishes. Sams is an incorporation of anarchy and playfulness and in this way resembles Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Langstrumpf, but first of all it refers to E. T. A. Hoffmanns fantastic tale “The strange child” (1817). Hoffmann’s and Paul Maar’s stories reveal a lot of similarities and both are revolutionary as far as the methods of children’s education are concerned. Both underline the importance of play, creativity and freedom for children’s development. The first book about Sams was translated into Polish in 2009, more than 35 years after its German premiere. The Polish version was probably too late to be able to play a similarly revolutionary role. The connection to E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Strange Child” could also not be noticed as its Polish rendition was published even later – in 2014 (translated by the author of the paper). But the shape of Polish translation can also be one of the reasons why Sams did not gain a comparable popularity as the original story. Polish Sams – due to some modifications in the translation – is a much more well-behaved and disciplined creature than the anarchic and playful German Sams.