Les Effinger 2: Une saga berlinoise

by Gabriele Tergit, Nicole Henneberg (afterword), Rose Labourie (translator)

528 pages

Published May 8, 2025

About the author

Gabriele Tergit had already pioneered as a female court reporter for major Berlin newspapers when she became famous overnight for her socially critical novel about the late Weimar Republic, Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm (Käsebier Conquers the Kurfürstendamm, 1931). Her literary career in Germany was cut short by Hitler, however, and, like Irmgard Keun, she was largely forgotten after the war. But in spite of her lack of success in the early Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the exiled author never stopped writing and also worked tirelessly for the last 25 years of her life as the honorary secretary of the London PEN-Center of expatriate German-speaking authors. With the growing interest in women writers in the late 1970’s Tergit’s writings have attracted renewed attention and many have been republished.

Reviews

[Suzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

« L’humanité, ce miroir aux alouettes. L’homme agit par utilitarisme. »
Fin de cette duologie assez satisfaisante. L’écriture est toujours spéciale car traduction de l’allemand. On a suivi la naissance, la vie et le développement des personnages dans le tome 1 alors que celui-ci nous permets de finir aussi bien l’histoire que leurs vies chargées. Les réflexions philosophiques et socialistes m’ont marqué par leur justesse.