author
Iwan Heilbut
1898–1972
A German Jewish novelist and journalist whose life was shaped by exile, he wrote about Berlin, displacement, and the hard realities of the 20th century. His work was once acclaimed, then largely forgotten, and has since drawn renewed interest.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Hamburg in 1898, he came from a long-established Jewish family and, after an unfinished course of study, built a career in Berlin as a journalist and writer. He contributed to major newspapers including the Vossische Zeitung and the Berliner Tageblatt, and his 1928 Berlin novel Triumph der Frau brought him early literary success.
After the Nazi rise to power, he was briefly interned and fled Germany in 1933, first through Czechoslovakia to France and later to the United States. Exile became a defining part of his life and writing, and he was involved in German-language émigré cultural and political circles during these years.
After the Second World War, he returned to Europe and died in Bonn in 1972. Although his name faded from many literary histories, later archives and exhibitions helped bring attention back to a writer whose work captures both the energy of interwar Berlin and the dislocation of exile.