German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile 1933-1950

Book excerpt: This volume deals with authors in exile - those writers who were forced to leave their home country after the National Socialists seized power in 1933. Although many of the authors have continued to receive recognition in their particular fields, whether film or adult literature, one group of artists has been overlooked - the authors and illustrators of children's literature. Now for the first time German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile, 1933-1050, has recorded and made accessible a wealth of information on these German-speaking authors and illustrators who emigrated to many different countries and regions of the world. German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile, 1933-1950, contains biographies of 101 authors and illustrators of children and youth literature as well as bibliographies of the books written and illustrated by them that were published in exile between 1933 and 1950. Included are authors who were born before 1918 in Germany or in areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and who lived or worked in Germany or Austria until 1933. Many of them were forced to emigrate because their lives were endangered. Some of them left before the repressive measures of the National Socialists were implemented, in order to maintain their intellectual and artistic freedom. The exile countries they chose were the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, Poland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Australia, Canada, China and Palestine/Israel. Among the authors listed in this volume are Kurt Held (Die rote Zora und ihre Bande 1941), Irmgard Keun (Nac.