Anna Goeldin – The Last Witch

Anna Goeldin—The Last Witch (1982) is the novel with which Swiss writer Eveline Hasler established her literary reputation. It imagines the life of Anna Göldi (Göldin in the contemporary spelling, indicating the female gender in the name; Goeldin is a variant of the spelling without the special character). Goeldin was executed by decapitation in 1782 in Glarus, Switzerland and has become known as the last person to be executed for witchcraft in a German-speaking country.

In her novel, the author describes Goeldin as an unusual woman, ahead of her time. She is independent, moves around a lot, and men and women perceive her as very sensual. Through hard work, she raises herself from poor beginnings, even learns to read, but she becomes the victim of a power struggle between two powerful families in the canton. The novel won much praise from critics who claimed it "draws von artistic intuition as much as on its expert subject knowledge." Women's emancipation is a recurring theme in Hasler's novels. Women in Switzerland had gained the right to vote in federal elections after a referendum in February 1971. For some cantonal elections, it took even longer, such as 1991 in the Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden. With the rise of women's self awareness in the 1970s, Hasler was not along in making the "witch" a "feminist symbol," as Pen International wrote in 1989. Another major theme of the novel is the suspicion of child murder, maids driven to infanticide by intolerable conditions, a theme widely popular in the eighteenth century.

Hasler incorporates contemporary documents in her novel, setting the quotes apart in italics. This technique "lends the narratives a sense of authenticity and intensifies their impact."

In her afterword, Hasler summarizes the "unexpected publicity" of the trial. The term "judicial murder" was coined by the historian August Ludwig Schlözer in connection with the trial.

The novel was adapted into a feature film with the same title, Anna Göldin – Letzte Hexe by Swiss filmmaker Gertrud Pinkus in 1991. Both novel and film offer a good sense of the milieu and gender roles. Anna Goeldin is an outsider in the community, and her gender and social position as a maidservant make her vulnerable to unfounded accusations.