NONE OF US - The Life of Irmgard Keun

  • A comprehensive and vivid portrait of Irmgard Keun, a true icon of 20th-century literature.
  • From the Roaring Twenties and the Nazi era to exile and the post-war German Republic - a fresh and fascinating account of Keun’s journey.
  • With previously unpublished archival material, offering a new perspective on her mysterious return to Germany and her personal tragedies.

Irmgard Keun’s arrival on the literary stage in 1931 was nothing short of a sensation. In her mid-twenties, she became an overnight star, creating unforgettable female protagonists in Gilgi – eine von uns and Das kunstseidene Mädchen. But then, the Nazis rose to power. Keun emigrated to Amsterdam, embarked on a stormy affair with Joseph Roth, and maintained close friendships with Heinrich Mann and Stefan Zweig. In 1940, she mysteriously returned to Germany, trading exile for a life without prospects. After the war, she continued to portrait her contemporaries with undiminished wit and sharp insight - befriending Heinrich Böll - yet, overshadowed by personal tragedies, she struggled to regain her footing as an author.

Each of the political eras Keun lived through was captured by her in incomparable ways: her life and work reflect the roaring twenties, the Nazi period, and the early West German Republic; they tell of fame and oblivion - until her late rediscovery in the Federal Republic. What a story - the story of an icon! In a gripping narrative, Tobias Lehmkuhl unfolds Irmgard Keun’s biography in its full, vibrant complexity for the very first time.

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  • Publisher: Rowohlt Berlin
  • Release: 06.10.2026
  • ISBN: 978-3-7371-0220-9
  • 304 Pages
  • Author: Tobias Lehmkuhl

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Buchcover von NONE OF US - The Life of Irmgard Keun: Das Leben der Irmgard Keun
Tobias LehmkuhlNONE OF US - The Life of Irmgard Keun
Portrait von Tobias Lehmkuhl
© Bernhard Ludewig
Tobias Lehmkuhl

Tobias Lehmkuhl , born in 1976, studied in Bonn, Barcelona, and Berlin. Since 2002, he has worked as a freelance journalist, writing for  Die Zeit ,  Deutschlandfunk , and the  Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . In 2017, Tobias Lehmkuhl received the Berlin Prize for Literary Criticism. His biographies of pop icon Nico (2018) and Der doppelte Erich. Kästner im Dritten Reich (2023) were highly acclaimed by the press.