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Must-read classics in translation

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10 classics to celebrate International Women’s Day

Ferdinand, the Man with the Kind Heart

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'A great writer' Ali Smith 
 
Newly translated by Michael Hofmann, the touching final novel from the author of Child of All Nations 
 
'I don't think I'm that unusual, and I don't think I'm crazy either' 
 
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. Ferdinand - daydreamer, former prisoner of war, wearer of a curious jerkin - drifts around the city, observing life's absurdities, strenuously avoiding his fiancée and drinking brandy with his fabulous cousin. When he gets a job as a 'cheerful adviser' to those down on their luck, will Ferdinand's fortunes change too? 
Irmgard Keun's exuberantly funny and touching final novel takes the tiny moments of triumph and defeat in one man's life, and turns them into a moving portrait of the human spirit.

The overwhelming power of Keun's work lies in her surprisingly raw, witty, and resonant feminine voices

Nothing short of a revelation ... I am still haunted by it 'Praise for Child of All Nations'

I cannot think of anything else that conjures up so powerfully the atmosphere of a nation turned insane 'Praise for After Midnight'

Irmgard Keun was born in Berlin in 1905 and found instant success with her novels Gilgi (1931) and The Artificial Silk Girl (1932). Everything changed in 1933 when the Nazis blacklisted her and destroyed her books; in response, she attempted to sue the Gestapo for loss of earnings. She left Germany (and her husband) in 1936 and lived in exile in Europe, where she wrote Child of All Nations (1936) and After Midnight (1937). She sneaked back into Germany in 1940 under a false name and spent the rest of the war in Cologne. In later years, she wrote for magazines and radio and raised a daughter alone. She died in 1982. 
 
 Michael Hofmann is a poet and translator from German. For Penguin he has translated four books by Hans Fallada, in addition to works by Franz Kafka, Ernst Jünger, Irmgard Keun and Jakob Wassermann.

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 fiancée 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.

Gilgi, One of Us

A brilliant, bestselling feminist novel from Weimar Germany, from the author of Child of All Nations 
 
'A formidable literary talent ... Sharp yet naïve, Gilgi is utterly human' Irish Times 
 
Gilgi knows where she's going in life: she's 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 Keun's electrifying debut was an instant sensation in Weimar Germany, with its frank, fearless exploration of sex, work and love. 
Translated by Geoff Wilkes 
 
'How contemporary the novel feels, with its portrait of a woman fighting to maintain control over her life and her body' The New York Times

A gem of novel, a bittersweet delight ... Keun brilliantly conveys both the decadence and the despair of late-era Weimar Germany ... Expertly translated by Geoff Wilkes

I was struck by how contemporary the novel feels ... A female Times reviewer in 1932 noted that 'countless hard-working, industrious, healthy young girls recognized themselves in the heroine'. I suspect many members of our #MeToo generation will do so as well

Irmgard Keun was born in Berlin in 1905 and found instant success with her novels Gilgi (1931) and The Artificial Silk Girl (1932). Everything changed in 1933 when the Nazis blacklisted her and destroyed her books; in response, she attempted to sue the Gestapo for loss of earnings. She left Germany (and her husband) in 1936 and lived in exile in Europe, where she wrote Child of All Nations (1936) and After Midnight (1937). She sneaked back into Germany in 1940 under a false name and spent the rest of the war in Cologne. In later years, she wrote for magazines and radio and raised a daughter alone. She died in 1982.

Gilgi knows where she's going in life: she's ambitious, determined and fearless. She's not even derailed when her parents drop a massive bombshell on her twenty-first birthday. But then she meets the charming but aimless Martin, and for the first time, Gilgi finds herself blown bewilderingly and dangerously off-course. Set in Cologne against the backdrop of rising Nazism, Irmgard Keun's astonishing debut electrified Weimar Germany. With its frank exploration of sex, abortion, work and love, it feels as fresh today as when it first appeared.

The Artificial Silk Girl

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.

Just now I want to tell everyone about Irmgard Keun ... A great writer

Keun has few rivals - I can think of none - as a chronicler of the ambience or the consequences of the rise of Nazism

The Artificial Silk Girl follows Doris into the underbelly of a city that had once seemed all glamour and promise ... Kathie von Ankum's English translation will bring this masterwork to the foreground once more, giving a new generation the chance to discover Keun for themselves

Damned by the Nazis, hailed by the feminists ... a truly charming window into a young woman's life in the early 1930s

A young girl navigates interwar German society and the expectations - or lack thereof - placed upon women, in this poignant, melancholy novel ... This heartbreaking story of dashed hopes is one that still has the power to affect and inspire

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.

Child of All Nations

First time in paperback for this charming novel of life in exile in the 1930s

A truly great read, in all the meanings of great - and funny and deft, heartening and terrible, relevant right now all over again

Nothing short of a revelation ... I am still haunted by it

A delicious novel about an irreverent thirteen year old, Child of All Nations smokes and so does its heroine

Hugely engaging... with room for everything - shrewdness, forgiveness, wit and loneliness - while love makes all its hopeless deals with hope

Irmgard Keun was born in Berlin in 1905. After leaving school and trying her luck as an actress, she began to write in 1929 and found instant success with her early novels, which were blacklisted by the Nazis for their &lsquo;immoral&rsquo; depictions of the Modern Young Woman. From 1936 to 1938 she travelled through Europe with the writer Joseph Roth and published several novels, including Child of All Nations in 1938. Roth died in 1939 and Keun spent the war in Germany, living semi-legally under an assumed name. Following the war, she made a living writing humorous sketches for radio and magazines, published one more novel and had a daughter, whom she brought up alone. At the end of her life, her books gained a new following from a younger generation of feminists. Irmgard Keun died in 1982. 
 
Michael Hofmann is the author of several books of poems and a book of criticism, Behind the Lines, and the translator of many modern and contemporary authors, including Joseph Roth. Penguin publish his translations of Kafka&rsquo;s Metamorphosis and Other Stories and Ernst J&uuml;nger&rsquo;s Storm of Steel.

Kully knows some things you don&rsquo;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&rsquo;t enter a country without a passport or visa. And she knows that she and her parents can&rsquo;t go back to Germany again &ndash; her father&rsquo;s books are banned there. But there are also things she doesn&rsquo;t understand, like why there might be a war in Europe &ndash; 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.

Irmgard Keun

Anthea Bell

Arrested in Cologne for remarking that the Fuhrer looked sweaty, nineteen-year-old Sanna has fled to Frankfurt. But her troubles are far from over. Her best friend Gerti has fallen for a Jewish boy, her brother writes books that have been blacklisted, and her own aunt could turn her in to the authorities at any moment. Darkly humorous and utterly heart rending, this gripping novel vividly captures the terror and hysteria of pre-war Nazi Germany.

Irmgard Keun

Books by Irmgard Keun

Series by Irmgard Keun

Penguin Archive

Articles featuring Irmgard Keun

Must-read classics in translation

9 classics to celebrate women in translation

10 classics to celebrate International Women’s Day

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