Лучшие книги Ирмгард Койн

Повесть немецкой писательницы Ирмгард Койн – об искренней, смелой и решительной девочке, которая не может усидеть на месте. Чтобы не расстраивать родителей, она старается быть послушной. Но всё, что этой непоседе кажется правильным и естественным, у взрослых вызывает одно недоумение. Все произведения в серии «Чтение — лучшее учение» публикуются в полном объеме без сокращений и адаптации.

В настоящее издание вошел известный антифашистский роман "После полуночи" (1937) немецкой писательницы Ирмгард Койн (1905-1982). Политическая острота романа заключается в разоблачении обмана, учиненного над мелкобуржуазными массами, обмана, так театрально задуманного "фюрером" и его "соратниками". Особую выразительность повествованию придает стиль книги, манера рассказывать обо всем словами и понятиями простоватой героини, наивно выбалтывающей правду о фашизме. Героиня ничего не резюмирует, она просто болтает, важное идет рядом с неважным, смешное рядом с трагическим, но автор далеко не сливается с образом своей героини, направляя очень…

Before Sex and the City there was Bridget Jones. And before Bridget Jones was The Artificial Silk Girl.

In 1931, a young woman writer living in Germany 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. Today, more than seven decades later, the story of this quintessential "material girl" remains as relevant as ever, as an accessible new translation brings this lost classic to light once more. Other Press is pleased to announce the republication of The Artificial Silk Girl, elegantly translated by noted Germanist Kathie von Ankum, and with a new introduction by Harvard professor Maria Tatar.

Irmgard Keun's first novel Gilgi was an overnight sensation upon its initial publication in Germany, selling thousands of copies, inspiring numerous imitators, and making Keun a household name—a reputation that was only heightened when, a few years later, the nervy Keun sued the Gestapo for blocking her royalties.

The story of a young woman trying to establish her independence in a society being overtaken by fascism, Gilgi was not only a brave story, but revolutionary in its depiction of women's issues, at the same time that it was, simply, an absorbing and stirring tale of a dauntless spirit. Gilgi is a secretary in a hosiery firm, but she doesn't intend to stay there for long: she's disciplined and ambitious, taking language classes, saving up money to go abroad, and carefully avoiding both the pawing of her boss and any other prolonged romantic entanglements. But then she falls in love with Martin, a charming drifter, and leaves her job for domestic bliss—which turns out not to be all that blissful-- and Gilgi finds herself pregnant and facing a number of moral dilemmas.

Revolutionary at the time for its treatment of sexual harassment, abortion, single motherhood, and the "New Woman," Gilgi remains a perceptive and beautifully constructed novel about one