author
Ida Frohnmeyer
1882–1968
Born in India and later at home in Basel, this German-Swiss writer turned a life shaped by mission work, education, and travel into fiction with a strong social conscience. Her story also brushes against literary history through a close friendship with Hermann Hesse.
2 Audiobooks
Hansi
by Ida Frohnmeyer
Und die ihr alle meine Brüder seid
by Ida Frohnmeyer
About the author
Born on December 31, 1882, in Calicut, India, Ida Frohnmeyer was the daughter of missionaries connected with the Basel Mission. She spent part of her childhood in Switzerland and later lived in Calw with the Hesse family, where she formed a close friendship with Hermann Hesse. She trained as a kindergarten teacher and worked in several roles including educator, editor, and writer.
Frohnmeyer went on to become a German-Swiss author whose work often reflected the worlds she knew firsthand: family life, faith, women’s lives, and social concerns. Reference sources describe her not only as a novelist and storyteller, but also as a feminist voice. She lived in Basel from 1933 onward and remained active in literary life there.
She died in Basel on August 29, 1968. Today she is remembered as a writer whose life crossed cultures and countries, and whose books grew out of lived experience rather than literary fashion.