I Opened My Eyes and Saw the Light
‘What a treasure trove of form, beauty and melancholy wisdom!’
Mascha Kaléko is an extraordinary, luminous figure in German literature. Nobody embodies the Berlin of the Weimar Republic – the typewriter-grey metropolis, the gaudy cinema adverts, the nights at the Romanisches Café that never seemed to end – better than Kaléko, the melancholic poet of the city, possessed of a sparkling wit. After she fled from the Nazis in 1938, she sang of her lost homeland in verses written about life as an émigré in New York, Jerusalem and elsewhere. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of her death, Daniel Kehlmann offers a personal view of her work.
- Poetry and prose – Selected and with a foreword by Daniel Kehlmann
- A classic, a great outsider – Daniel Kehlmann rediscovers Mascha Kaléko at the 50th anniversary of her death
- Mascha Kaléko is beloved like no other: Her books have been read, gifted and recommended by millions
Mascha Kaléko
Mascha Kaléko, born in 1907 in Galicia, died in Zurich in 1975, shot to fame in the 1930s with the publication of her ‘Lyrical Shorthand Pad’. In 1938, she emigrated to the US and later to Israel. She is one of the most prominent German-language poets of the 20th century.
.jpg?ts=1721809755 "Mascha Kaléko")
Daniel Kehlmann
Daniel Kehlmann, born in 1975, has been awarded numerous prizes for his work and has been translated many times. He is one of the few German authors of the post-war period to also receive international acclaim. He lives in Berlin, Vienna, and New York.
