The Artificial Silk Girl: A Novel

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

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. 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 Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the era of cinematic glamour- The Artificial Silk Girl. Though a Nazi censorship board banned Irmgard Keun's 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.

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 expectationsor lack thereofplaced 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 womans 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 Ankums English translation will bring this masterwork to the foreground once more, giving a new generation the chance to discover Keun for themselves. Elle.com

Author Bio

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.