Carola Friederike Sautter

Troy, NY - Carola Friederike Sautter, 66, died suddenly on Saturday, March 4, 2023.

She leaves behind her husband of 38 years, David Solomon, her two sons, Adam (and Alexis Sarandon) and Luke, Adam’s three children (his daughter Cooper, and sons Rudiger, and Indiana), and her goddaughter Sianie Flannery. She leaves her mother, Ruth (Haeussermann) Sautter. Her father, Fritz, died in 2003.

Carola was born in Stuttgart, Germany, but lived in the Capital Region most of her life. She graduated from the Albany Academy for Girls, had a BA from The Johns Hopkins University, and a Masters in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. She worked in publishing, first at the Baltimore offices of a German medical publisher Urban & Schwartzenberg, then after UPenn as a production editor for Lexington Books and an acquisitions editor at the State University of New York Press. Her acquisitions work covered literature and philosophy as well as Holocaust Studies. The Holocaust work was vital to her, as a non-Jewish German native. We would know when she had just read a Holocaust memoir that came across her desk because she would be emotionally shattered for days. And she read them ALL ... it was an act of conscience.

The literature and philosophy work was equally important to her. She was committed to the fundamental importance of art and literature and the aesthetic orientation to life they provided as a means more fully to embrace the world in creative, constructive ways. Her editorial work took place at a crucial time in the evolution of literary theory, and she sought to uphold the central value of the playful elements of human endeavor during a period when they were increasingly threatened by attempts to reduce art to a purely sociological construct. Her authors and series editors adored her for her intelligence, humor, and the fact that she could read the works at their level, critique their arguments, even disagree about how a particular Heidegger phrase should be translated.

Carola loved being a mom, and she was always happiest around her kids. The last few years as she got to know her grandkids were some of the happiest of her life. She was passionate, sometimes contentious, profoundly honest, and hilarious. She loved to sing and enjoyed reading poetry aloud.

Carola was “my other family” to so many people. She found ways to connect with and help people from every part of her world. She was a genuine empath. And she adored animals, wild, stray, or living in our house. Our dogs and cats, especially Pansy, are bereft, and she was a good friend of Bill W for the last years of her life.

The family is humbled by the outpouring of grief and love we have already seen. We will hold a Memorial Service in Carola’s honor on the 15th of April at the Albany Academy for Girls, 140 Academy Road, Albany, NY 12208 at 10:30 am.

In lieu of flowers contributions may be made in memory of Carola Friederike Sautter to the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society, 3 Oakland Avenue, Menands, NY 12204.

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