Irmgard Keun Knihy

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 Keun's 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 name--a reputation that was only heightened when, a few years later, 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 women's 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 doesn't intend to stay there for long: she's 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 bliss--which 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 woman's path to maturity. It is presented here in its first-ever translation into English

Sanna and her ravishing friend Gerti would rather speak of love than politics, but in 1930s Frankfurt, politics cannot be escaped--even in the lady's bathroom. Crossing town one evening to meet up with Gerti's Jewish lover, a blockade cuts off the girls' path--it is the Fürher in a motorcade procession, and the crowd goes mad striving to catch a glimpse of Hitler's 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.

Bombed-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. Recently released from a prisoner-of-war camp, Ferdinand drifts around the city, strenuously avoiding his fiancee and drinking brandy with his fabulous cousin. But is this any way to go on? Told with Keun's characteristic humour, irony and generosity of spirit, this is a wry portrait of a man, a city and a nation that asks how we go on living even in the face of total defeat.

Kully knows some things you don't 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 can't enter a country without a passport or visa. And she knows that she and her parents can't go back to Germany again - her father's books are banned there.

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 Keun's 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.

„Es klingt wie eine erfundene Geschichte: vor zehn Jahren wurde in den USA ein Konvolut von Briefen und Telegrammen gefunden, abgeschickt zwischen 1933 und 1947 aus Deutschland, Absender: Irmgard Keun. Diese Briefe, Liebesbriefe an den emigrierten Arzt Arnold Strauss, hier nun zum erstenmal veröffentlicht, zeigen Irmgard Keun in einem ganz neuen Licht: Eine verschwenderische Frau, die mit dem Herzen denkt und mit dem Verstand fühlt. Hinreißend, charmant und egozentrisch wie ein kleines Kind, bindungsängstlich und treu, klug aber zu jeder Dummheit bereit. Sie schreibt in diesen überraschend offenen Briefen, die sich wie ein intimes Tagebuch lesen, was sie sonst nirgendwo erzählt hat: über sich selbst, über ihre Arbeit, über ihre Abhängigkeiten und über ihre Hoffnungen. Überdies erzählen die Briefe Geschichten bissige und amüsante, vom Leben und Überleben im “„Dritten Reich“„ und im Exil. Als wäre es ein Roman.“

Erstmals das Gesamtwerk der Bestsellerautorin Irmgard Keun in einer kommentierten Neuausgabe.