Everyday Life as Alternative Space in Exile Writing

Andrea Hammel

ISBN 10: 3039105248 / ISBN 13: 9783039105243

Published by Peter Lang, Peter Lang Feb 2008, 2008

About this Item

Neuware -This book is the ¿rst comparative study of the novels written by ¿ve German-speaking women ¿ Anna Gmeyner, Selma Kahn, Hilde Spiel, Martina Wied and Hermynia Zur Mühlen ¿ who had to ¿ee National Socialist Central Europe. Gmeyner, Spiel, Wied and Zur Mühlen found refuge in Britain and thus added ¿ together with male colleagues such as Stefan Zweig and Robert Neumann ¿ an important but rarely investigated new dimension to the British literary landscape. The aim of this study is to reassess the women refugee writers¿ narrative strategies and integrate their work within feminist literary studies. The author investigates the ¿ve writers¿ narrativisation of everyday life, used to subvert the dominant discourse, and their portrayal of the intersection between class, racial and gender oppression. She also shows their innovative ways of picturing the gendered tension between the experiences of exile and exile as a modernist metaphor as well as their search for ways to refute the Nationalist Socialist rewriting of history. The book situates the novels within the theoretical discussions surrounding exile studies, social history and women¿s writing.

Seller Inventory # 9783039105243

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Everyday Life as Alternative Space in Exile Writing
• Publisher: Peter Lang, Peter Lang Feb 2008
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3039105248
• ISBN 13: 9783039105243
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 220W x 150H x 15D millimeters 220 millimeters width by 150 millimeters height by 15 millimeters depth
• Weight: 373 grams

About this title

Synopsis

This book is the first comparative study of the novels written by five German-speaking women – Anna Gmeyner, Selma Kahn, Hilde Spiel, Martina Wied and Hermynia Zur Mühlen – who had to flee National Socialist Central Europe. Gmeyner, Spiel, Wied and Zur Mühlen found refuge in Britain and thus added – together with male colleagues such as Stefan Zweig and Robert Neumann – an important but rarely investigated new dimension to the British literary landscape. The aim of this study is to reassess the women refugee writers’ narrative strategies and integrate their work within feminist literary studies. The author investigates the five writers’ narrativisation of everyday life, used to subvert the dominant discourse, and their portrayal of the intersection between class, racial and gender oppression. She also shows their innovative ways of picturing the gendered tension between the experiences of exile and exile as a modernist metaphor as well as their search for ways to refute the Nationalist Socialist rewriting of history. The book situates the novels within the theoretical discussions surrounding exile studies, social history and women’s writing.

About the Author

The Author: Andrea Hammel is a Research Fellow at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies and a lecturer in German culture and history at the University of Sussex. A former visiting lecturer at the Freie Universität Berlin, she has published widely on the writing of women refugees, German-speaking refugees who came to Britain and survivors’ autobiographies.