Irmgard Keun

In 1931, a young writer named Irmgard Keun was inspired by Anita Loos''s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to describe pre-war Berlin and the age of cinematic glamour through the eyes of a woman. The resulting novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, became an acclaimed bestseller and a masterwork of German literature, in the tradition of Christopher Isherwood''s Berlin Stories and Bertolt Brecht''s Three Penny Opera. Like Isherwood and Brecht, Keun revealed the dark underside of Berlin''s ''golden twenties'' with empathy and honesty. Unfortunately, a Nazi censorship board banned Keun''s work in 1933 and destroyed all existing copies of The Artificial Silk Girl. Only one English translation was published, in Great Britain, before the book disappeared in the chaos of the ensuing war.

90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books 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.

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.