![]() ![]() However, the family is a very dysfunctional one: Kully’s father is permanently penniless, and he drags the girl and her mother from place to place trying to borrow from friends and acquaintances, get advances on books or payments for articles. ![]() I wonder what the point is of children in Germany still having to read and write? Then my father didn’t want to be in Germany any more, because the government had locked up friends of his, and because he couldn’t write or say the things he wanted to write and say. When I was in Germany, before, I did go to school, and that’s where I learned to read and write. They cannot return to Germany because Kully’s father is obviously persona non grata because of his writing and his views. Her father is a writer, and he and her mother and Kully herself are on the move in 1930s Europe (the book was published in 1938). The story is told from the point of view of Kully, a nine-year old girl who’s leading anything but a conventional life. The book is translated by Michael Hofmann, who’s also responsible for many translations of Joseph Roth and he provides a useful afterword too. “Child of All Nations” came my way via ReadItSwapIt shortly after, but it’s taken the impetus of WIT month to get me to pick it up… It was, and I reviewed it here, and was keen to read more of her work. I first stumbled across the writing of Irmgard Keun in 2013, when I picked up her book “After Midnight” in (old) Foyles as it sounded excellent. ![]()
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