A gripping novel based on the life of the 19th-century revolutionary Emma Herwegh

As the daughter of a well-regarded family, Emma Siegmund causes a scandal by marrying the revolutionary poet Georg Herwegh. Committed to the socialist cause, she becomes the only woman to join the armed troops that bring the revolution from France to Germany in 1848. But when Georg falls madly in love with Natalie, the wife of his comrade Alexander Herzen, Emma finds her ideals challenged, setting off a private battle of fidelity and betrayal.

In this compelling, intimate novel, Dirk Kurbjuweit tells the story of a woman who does not bow to the prejudices of her time. In doing so, he shows us just how relevant her struggles are to contemporary life—in her contradictions, her ambitions, and her quest for freedom and happiness.

Dirk Kurbjuweit is a journalist at Der Spiegel and lives in Berlin. He has received numerous awards for his writing, including the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for journalism, and is the author of ten critically acclaimed novels, many of which have been adapted for film, television, theatre and radio.

Imogen Taylor is literary translator based in Berlin who also translated Fear, Twins and The Missing by Dirk Kurbjuweit. Her translation of Sasha Marianna Salzmann's Beside Myself was shortlisted for the 2021 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize 2020. More recent work includes Alfred Döblin's Two Women and a Poisoning and Dana Grigorcea's Dracula Park.

'A well-rounded historical novel.' Rheinische Post

'Emma Herwegh will stay with the reader long after the book is closed.' Neue Zürcher Zeitung