Description
Description
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.
About the Author
About the Author
Irmgard Keun was born in Berlin in 1905. She published her first novel, Gilgi, One of Us, in 1931. Her second novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, became an instant bestseller in 1932, but was then blacklisted by the Nazis. Eventually sentenced to death, she fled the country and staged her own suicide before sneaking back into Germany, where she lived undercover for the duration of the war. She later resumed writing under the name of Charlotte Tralow, enjoying only modest success until her early works were rediscovered and reissued in the late 1970s. She died in Cologne in 1982.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"A highly original, extremely stylish novel...The narrator is a young woman whose irreverent and funny voice you will not easily forget." --Daniel Kehlmann, New York Times Book Review "A young girl navigates interwar German society and the expectations--or lack thereof--placed upon women, in this poignant, melancholy novel from the late Keun...[This] heartbreaking story of dashed hopes is one that still has the power to affect and inspire." --Publishers Weekly "Damned by the Nazis, hailed by the feminists...a truly charming window into a young woman's life in the early 1930s." --Los Angeles Times "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." --Elle.com
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
Other Press (NY)
Pub date:
2025-08-05
Length:
224 pages
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