Irmgard Keun

Because Kully's father has written the wrong things about his country, and because there might be a war coming (Kully's heard of some of the men involved, like Hitler, Chamberlain and Mussolini) her family can't go back to Germany. But because visas run out, they can't stay anywhere else either. So they keep moving from country to country and staying in hotels. Often Kully's father travels off to stir up an advance while she and her mother stay at the hotels in hock, while bills mount up and it becomes harder and harder to leave . . .

On a cruiseship bound for Buenos Aires, a wealthy passenger challenges the world chess champion to a match. He accepts with a sneer. He will beat anyone, he says. But only if the stakes are high. Soon, the chess board is surrounded. At first, the challenger crumbles before the mind of the master. But then, a soft-spoken voice from the crowd begins to whisper nervous suggestions. Perfect moves, brilliant predictions. The speaker has not played a game for more than twenty years, he says. He is wholly unknown. But somehow, he is also entirely formidable ...

A Susanne, una chica de provincias de diecinueve años que intenta hacerse camino en la Alemania nazi, le gustaría abrir con Franz, su singular novio, una tabaquería. Pero poco antes de la inauguración arrestan a Franz y a su unico amigo Paul, quienes han sido denunciados a la Gestapo por el dueño de otra tabaqueria cercana. Cuando finalmente queda en libertad, Franz se venga del denunciante y Susanne debe tomar una decision que cambiara sus vidas. Despues de medianoche, que se publico en 1937 en Amsterdam, recrea un mundo habitado por una nutrida galeria de personajes cuyas peripecias expresan la desquiciada vida cotidiana durante el Tercer Reich, asi como las distintas actitudes ante el regimen.

«Deseo escribir como si todo fuera una película porque mi vida es eso y lo será todavía más. Además me parezco a Colleen Moore si ella se hiciera la permanente y tuviese la nariz más chic y un poquit

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Sanna and her ravishing friend Gerti would rather speak of love than politics, but in 1930s Frankfurt, politics cannot be escaped--even in the ladys bathroom. Crossing town one evening to meet up with Gertis Jewish lover, a blockade cuts off the girls path--it is the Furher in a motorcade procession, and the crowd goes mad striving to catch a glimpse of Hitlers raised "empty hand." Then the parade is over, and in the long hours after midnight Sanna and Gerti will face betrayal, death, and the heartbreaking reality of being young in an era devoid of innocence or romance. In 1937, German author Irmgard Keun had only recently fled Nazi Germany with her lover Joseph Roth when she wrote this slim, exquisite, and devastating book. It captures the unbearable tension, contradictions, and hysteria of pre-war Germany like no other novel. Yet even as it exposes human folly, the book exudes a hopeful humanism. It is full of humor and light, even as it describes the first moments of a nightmare. After Midnight is a masterpiece that deserves to be read and remembered anew.

The stirring, never-before-translated story of a single, pregnant, and wickedly nervy young secretary making her way through a Germany succumbing to the Nazis.Irmgard Keuns first novel Gilgi was an overnight sensation upon its initial publication in Germany, selling thousands of copies, inspiring numerous imitators, and making Keun a household namea reputation that was only heightened when, a few years later, the nervy Keun sued the Gestapo for blocking her royalties.The story of a young woman trying to establish her independence in a society being overtaken by fascism, Gilgi was not only a brave story, but revolutionary in its depiction of womens issues, at the same time that it was, simply, an absorbing and stirring tale of a dauntless spirit. Gilgi is a secretary in a hosiery firm, but she doesnt intend to stay there for long: shes disciplined and ambitious, taking language classes, saving up money to go abroad, and carefully avoiding both the pawing of her boss and any other prolonged romantic entanglements. But then she falls in love with Martin, a charming drifter, and leaves her job for domestic blisswhich turns out not to be all that blissful-- and Gilgi finds herself pregnant and facing a number of moral dilemmas.Revolutionary at the time for its treatment of sexual harassment, abortion, single motherhood, and the "New Woman,"Gilgi remains a perceptive and beautifully constructed novel about one womans path to maturity. It is presented here in its first-ever translation into English.

« Les filles sont de sexe féminin. J’ai appris en sciences naturelles que tous les animaux sont féminins quand ils produisent des choses de valeur. Quand ils sont féminins, ils peuvent avoir des peti

Depicting a young womans life in Nazi Germany, a masterpiece from the author of Child of All NationsI cannot think of anything else that conjures up so powerfully the atmosphere of a nation turned insaneSunday TelegraphNineteen-year-old Sanna just wants to drink her beer in peace, but thats difficult when Hitler has come to town and his motorcade is blocking the streets of Frankfurt. Whats more, her best friend Gerti is in love with a Jewish boy, her brother writes books that have been blacklisted and her own aunt may denounce her to the authorities at any moment, as Germany teeters on the edge of the abyss. Written after she had fled the Nazi regime, Irmgard Keuns masterly novel captures the feverish hysteria and horror of the era with devastating perceptiveness and humour.Translated by Geoff Wilkes

A great writer Ali SmithNewly translated by Michael Hofmann, the touching final novel from the author of Child of All NationsI dont think Im that unusual, and I dont think Im crazy eitherBombed-out Cologne after the war is a strange place to be. The black market in jam and corsets is booming, half-destroyed houses offer opportunities for stealing doors and eggcups, and de-Nazification parties are all the rage. Ferdinand - daydreamer, former prisoner of war, wearer of a curious jerkin - drifts around the city, observing lifes absurdities, strenuously avoiding his fiancee and drinking brandy with his fabulous cousin. When he gets a job as a cheerful adviser to those down on their luck, will Ferdinands fortunes change too?Irmgard Keuns exuberantly funny and touching final novel takes the tiny moments of triumph and defeat in one mans life, and turns them into a moving portrait of the human spirit.

A brilliant, bestselling feminist novel from Weimar Germany, from the author of Child of All NationsA formidable literary talent ... Sharp yet naive, Gilgi is utterly humanIrish TimesGilgi knows where shes going in life: shes ambitious, focused and determined, even when her boss tries it on with her, even when her parents reveal a terrible secret on her twenty-first birthday. Then she meets the charming but feckless Martin and, for the first time, Gilgi finds herself bewilderingly and dangerously derailed. Irmgard Keuns electrifying debut was an instant sensation in Weimar Germany, with its frank, fearless exploration of sex, work and love.Translated by Geoff WilkesHow contemporary the novel feels, with its portrait of a woman fighting to maintain control over her life and her bodyThe New York Times

This enthralling tale of a material girl in 1930s Berlin is the masterpiece of a literary icon, rediscovered and restored to the same heights as such luminaries as Isherwood and Brecht. In 1931 a young woman writer living in Germany penned her answer to Anita Looss Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the era of cinematic glamour: The Artificial Silk Girl. Though a Nazi censorship board banned Irmgard Keuns work in 1933 and destroyed all existing copies, the novel survived, as fresh and relevant today as the day it was written.The Artificial Silk Girl is the story of Doris, beautiful and striving, who vows to write down all that happens to her as the star of her own life story. But instead of scripting what she hopes will be a quick rise to fame and fortune as either an actress or the mistress/wife of a wealthy man, she describes a slow descent into near prostitution and homelessness. Prewar Berlin is not the dazzling and exciting city of promise it seems; Doris unwittingly reveals a bleak, seamy urban landscape.

Publicada en 1931, esta primera novela de Irmgard Keun es el penetrante retrato de una mujer que intenta abrirse camino en una época marcada por el ritmo acelerado de la metrópolis y las turbulencias economicas y politicas. Un retrato de una sociedad y del despertar a la edad adulta y a la responsabilidad de una joven.

A hilarious, tragic novel about a would-be movie star in 1920s Berlin, from the author of Child of All Nations Doris is going to be a big star. Wearing a stolen fur coat and recently fired from her office job, she takes an all-night train to Berlin to make it in the movies. But what she encounters in the city is not fame and fortune, but gnawing hunger, seedy bars, and exploitative men - and as Doris sinks ever lower, she resorts to desperate measures to survive. Very funny and intensely moving, this is a dazzling portrait of roaring Berlin in the 1920s, and a poignant exploration of the doomed pursuit of fame and glamour.The Artificial Silk Girl was a huge bestseller in Weimar Germany before the Nazis banned it, and is today Keuns best-loved book in Germany. Funny, fresh and radical in its dissection of the limited options available to working women, it is a novel that speaks to our times.

Kully knows some things you dont learn at school. She knows the right way to roll a cigarette and pack a suitcase. She knows that cars are more dangerous than lions. She knows you cant enter a country without a passport or visa. And she knows that she and her parents cant go back to Germany again her fathers books are banned there. But there are also things she doesnt understand, like why there might be a war in Europe just that there are men named Hitler, Mussolini and Chamberlain involved. Little Kully is far more interested where their next meal will come from and the ladies who seem to buzz around her father. Meanwhile she and her parents roam through Europe. Her mother would just like to settle down, but as her restless father struggles to find a new publisher, the three must escape from country to country as their visas expire, money runs out and hotel bills mount up.

A Susanne, una chica de provincias de diecinueve años que intenta hacerse camino en la Alemania nazi, le gustaría abrir con Franz, su singular novio, una tabaquería. Pero poco antes de la inauguración arrestan a Franz y a su ºnico amigo Paul, quienes han sido denunciados a la Gestapo por el dueño de otra tabaqueria cercana. Cuando finalmente queda en libertad, Franz se venga del denunciante y Susanne debe tomar una decision que cambiara sus vidas. Despues de medianoche, que se publico en 1937 en Amsterdam, recrea un mundo habitado por una nutrida galeria de personajes cuyas peripecias expresan la desquiciada vida cotidiana durante el Tercer Reich, asi como las distintas actitudes ante el regimen.

"Deseo escribir como si todo fuera una película porque mi vida es eso y lo será todavía más. Además me parezco a Colleen Moore si ella se hiciera la permanente y tuviese la nariz más chic y un poquito respingona. Mas tarde, cuando lo lea, todo sera como en el cine, me vere en imagene s. Ahora estoy en mi cuarto en camison, que se ha deslizado desde mis celebres hombros, y todo es de primera, aunque mi pierna izquierda es un poco mas gruesa que la derecha. Sin embargo, apenas se nota." Asi se explica Doris, la protagonista de esta novela aparecida en 1932, una joven secretaria que sueña con llegar a ser una estrella de cine en la Alemania de la crisis economica. El robo de un abrigo de marta cibelina, que Irmgard Keun convierte en un personaje mas de la narracion, la empuja a dejar la ciudad de provincias en que vive y huir a Berlin. En la capital de vida desbordante, descrita en freneticos pasajes, Doris descubre que ser una estrella no es tan importante como creia.

Kully querría poder nadar o volar en vez de recorrer los hoteles de toda Europa tras el rastro de su padre, un escritor que se ha visto obligado a abandonar la Alemania nazi. Con diez años, ha descubierto que una frontera no es una verja de jardin tan alta como el cielo, sino algo que sucede en el tren y es imposible de cruzar sin pasaporte ni visado. Ella preferiria que fuera un simple pedazo de tierra en el que quedarse, construir una cabaña y desde alli sacarle la lengua a los paises de derecha e izquierda. Aunque ha tenido que dejar el colegio, sabe que las matematicas sirven para entender las cotizaciones de las monedas, que es mil veces mejor tener diez dolares que un marco, y ya es capaz de expresarse practicamente en cualquier idioma extranjero, a pesar de que le cueste distinguir cual esta hablando en cada momento. Niña de todos los paises, publicada por primera vez en Amsterdam en 1938, es una novela encantadora en la que las vicisitudes y la melancolia del exilio se ocultan tras la mirada vivaz de su inolvidable protagonista.