author
Ina Seidel
1885–1974
A German poet and novelist, she became widely known for lyrical writing and historical fiction, especially the bestselling novel Das Wunschkind. Her life and work spanned imperial Germany, the Weimar years, the Nazi era, and the postwar period, giving her career a complicated place in German literary history.
1 Audiobook
Das Labyrinth: Ein Lebenslauf aus dem 18. Jahrhundert
by Ina Seidel
About the author
Born in Halle an der Saale in 1885, Ina Seidel grew into one of the best-known German writers of her generation. She wrote poetry, novels, essays, and memoirs, and her 1930 novel Das Wunschkind is generally regarded as her best-known work. In 1932, she was admitted to the Prussian Academy of Arts, a notable distinction for a woman writer of the time.
Seidel’s writing often centered on family life, history, faith, and inner emotional life. Alongside lyric poetry, she became especially associated with historical and family novels that reached a wide readership in Germany.
Her reputation is also shaped by politics as well as literature. She remained a prominent public writer during the Nazi period, which has made later assessments of her work more complicated. She died near Munich in 1974.