Evelyn Juers' extraordinary book is a unique imagining of the unconventional love affair between the writer and political activist Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger - a tall, blonde ex-barmaid twenty-seven years his junior - recounting their flight from Nazi Germany in 1933, to France and then to Los Angeles.
In House of Exile their story is intricately interwoven with others from their circle of friends, relatives and literary contemporaries: Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, James Joyce, Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf, among others. It gives us a poignant glimpse of a generation of remarkable writers who were determined to carry on living, reading and working in wartime - in ship's cabins, train compartments and shabby rented rooms - even though it seemed the civilized world was coming to an end.
This is a unique portrayal of the strange, dislocated existence of the emigre, and how lives are connected and defined by writing. Evelyn Juers enlarges the boundaries of biography to provide an intimate, sensitively imagined view of an extraordinary time in history.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
'Full of intelligence, wit, humour and a deep sense for the oddness of people and the mysteries of the creative life' -- David Malouf 'She can soar high over an historical era and then plunge to seize upon tiny details of ordinary life that bring her famous, long-gone people close to us in an intimacy that is almost shocking' -- Helen Garner 'Outstanding ... Juers dazzlingly exemplifies the radical possibilities when tensions between fiction and fact are suspended' * Australian Literary Review * 'Juers brings back into existence an entire pantheon of twentieth-century literary greats ... she burrows deep into the psyches of her subjects ... imaginative and intelligent ... so enthralling' * Weekend Australian *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Dateigröße
ISBN-13
978-0-14-196946-6 (9780141969466)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Evelyn Juers is an Australian writer, essayist, literary critic and publisher. She was born in Germany, moved to Australia in 1960, and has lived in Hamburg, Sydney, London and Geneva. She has a PhD from University of Essex, on the Brontes and the practice of biography, and has contributed to a wide range of Australian and international publications. She is co-publisher of the literary magazine HEAT and the Giramondo Publishing company.
