Irmgard Keun was a major novelist of Weimar and Nazi Germany. Three of her first four novels – Gilgi, eine von uns [Gilgi, One of Us, 1931], Das kunstseidene Mädchen [The Artificial Silk Girl, 1932], and Nach Mitternacht [After Midnight, 1937] – were immediate critical and popular successes and were translated into half a dozen languages. All three were filmed. Since Keun saw her talent and vocation in contemporaneous fiction (Zeitroman) with a satirical bent, her career, like that of many other German writers, suffered from the political crises between the 1930s and 1950s. She continued to publish four more novels as well as many feuilleton pieces for newspapers and …

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Citation: Argyle, Gisela. "Irmgard Keun". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 September 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12731, accessed 29 March 2024.]

12731 Irmgard Keun 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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