Das kunstseidene Mädchen by Irmgard Keun

Wenn wir alle gut wären (1954), Short stories, translated into English as If we were all good.Ferdinand, der Mann mit dem freundlichen Herzen (1950), Novel ( Ferdinand the kind-hearted man).Bilder und Gedichte aus der Emigration (1947) ( Pictures and poems of emigration).Kind aller Länder (1938), novel, translated into English as Child of all nations.D-Zug dritter Klasse (1938), novel ( Third class express).Nach Mitternacht (1937), novel, translated into English as After midnight.Das Mädchen, mit dem die Kinder nicht verkehren durften (1936), teenage novel, translated into English as Grown-ups don't understand.Das kunstseidene Mädchen (1932), novel, translated into English as The artificial silk girl.Gilgi - eine von uns (1931), novel, translated into English as Gilgi - One of Us.Protected by false reports of her own suicide, she lived there undercover until 1945. After the German invasion of the Netherlands, she returned in 1940 to Nazi Germany. She worked together with Roth, traveling with him to various cities such as Paris, Wilna, Lemberg, Warsaw, Vienna, Salzburg, Brussels and Amsterdam.

From 1936 to 1938, she had a romantic relationship with Joseph Roth, a relationship that at first had a positive effect on her literary output. She counted among her friends such literary notables as Egon Erwin Kisch, Hermann Kesten, Stefan Zweig, Ernst Toller, Ernst Weiss, and Heinrich Mann.

Keun received great acclaim for her sharp-witted books, most notably from such well-known authors as Alfred Döblin and Kurt Tucholsky, who said about her, 'A woman writer with humor, check this out!'. She went into exile from 1936-1940, first to Ostend in Belgium and later to Holland. In 1933/34, her books were confiscated and forbidden by the Nazis. Keun's first novel, Gilgi - One of Us, made her famous, as well as her next book and best-seller, The Artificial Silk Girl. In 1932, she married the writer and director Johannes Tralow. Encouraged by German writer Alfred Döblin, she turned her hand to writing. Although she then landed stage roles in Greifswald and Hamburg, these were only somewhat successful, and she decided to abandon her acting career in 1929. She worked as a stenotypist, but also attended acting school in Cologne from 1925-1927. There Keun attended an evangelical girls' school, from which she graduated in 1921. She and her family, including her brother Gerd, born in 1910, lived in the city until 1913, when they moved to Cologne. Irmgard Keun was born in Berlin (Charlottenburg) to Eduard and Elsa Charlotte Keun on February 6, 1905.

Das kunstseidene Mädchen by Irmgard Keun