Skip to content

The Artificial Silk Girl: A Novel
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

The Artificial Silk Girl: A Novel Paperback - 2011

by Keun, Irmgard

  • Used
  • Good
  • Paperback
Drop Ship Order

Description

paperback. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book.
Used - Good
NZ$57.47
FREE Shipping to USA Standard delivery: 7 to 14 days
More Shipping Options
Ships from Bonita (California, United States)
The BIBLIO Guarantee | Ask Seller a Question

Details

  • Title The Artificial Silk Girl: A Novel
  • Author Keun, Irmgard
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Condition Used - Good
  • Pages 216
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Other Press (NY), New York
  • Date 2011-06-14
  • Features Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 1590514548.G
  • ISBN 9781590514542 / 1590514548
  • Weight 0.5 lbs (0.23 kg)
  • Dimensions 8 x 5 x 0.8 in (20.32 x 12.70 x 2.03 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Berlin (Germany), Single women - Germany - Berlin
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

About Bonita California, United States

Biblio member since 2020
Seller rating: This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.

Terms of Sale: 30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.

Browse books from Bonita

From the publisher

Irmgard Keun was born in Berlin in 1905. She published her first novel, GilgióA Girl Just Like Us, in 1931. Her second novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, instantly became a bestseller. After the war, she resumed writing under the name of Charlotte Tralow, enjoying only modest success until her early works were rediscovered and reissued in the late 1970s. She died in 1982 in Cologne.

Excerpt

It was a dark morning and I saw his face in bed, and it made me feel angry and disgusted. Sleeping with a stranger you don’t care about makes a woman bad. You have to know what you’re doing it for. Money or love.
   So I left. It was five in the morning. The air was white and cold and wet like a sheet on the laundry line. Where was I to go? I had to wander around the park with the swans, who have small eyes and long necks that they use to dislike people. I can understand them but I don’t like
them either, despite the fact that they are alive and that you should take pity on them. Everyone had left me. I spent several cold hours and felt like I had been buried in a cemetery on a rainy fall day. But it wasn’t raining or else I would have stayed under a roof, because of the fur coat.
   I look so elegant in that fur. It’s like an unusual man who makes me beautiful through his love for me. I’m sure it used to belong to a fat lady with a lot of money—unfairly. It smells from checks and Deutsche Bank. But my skin is stronger. It smells of me now and Chypre—which is me, since Käsemann gave me three bottles of it. The coat wants me and I want it. We have each other.
   And so I went to see Therese. She also realized that I have to flee, because flight is an erotic word for her. She gave me her savings. Dear God, I swear to you, I will return it to her with diamonds and all the good fortune in the world.

Media reviews

“A young girl navigates interwar German society and the expectations—or lack thereof—placed upon women, in this poignant, melancholy novel from the late Keun… [This] heartbreaking story of dashed hopes is one that still has the power to affect and inspire.” —Publishers Weekly

“Damned by the Nazis, hailed by the feminists ... a truly charming window into a young woman’s life in the early 1930s” —Los Angeles Times
 
“The Artificial Silk Girl follows Doris into the underbelly of a city that had once seemed all glamour and promise ... Kathie von Ankum’s English translation will bring this masterwork to the foreground once more, giving a new generation the chance to discover Keun for themselves.” —Elle.com

Citations

  • Publishers Weekly, 04/25/2011, Page 0
  • Shelf Awareness, 07/01/2011, Page 0

About the author

Irmgard Keun was born in Berlin in 1905. She published her first novel, GilgiA Girl Just Like Us, in 1931. Her second novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, instantly became a bestseller. After the war, she resumed writing under the name of Charlotte Tralow, enjoying only modest success until her early works were rediscovered and reissued in the late 1970s. She died in 1982 in Cologne.

Hang on… we’re fetching the requested page.