The first English-language translation of the memoirs of Hans Keilson, one of Europe's most masterful and remarkable writers

In this unique work, which was composed in the 1990s and only recently rediscovered, Keilson brings back a bygone era in snapshots from a life spanning one hundred years. The external stations of this life — his youth in Brandenburg, his student years and the fast life in Berlin, his exile in Holland, his survival in hiding, and the loss of his parents — are framed by economic crisis, anti-Semitism, and war, but also by friendship, music, and hope. Hans Keilson reveals these themes in gentle, quizzical reflections and fragments, producing an unforgettable portrait of his time.

The memoir is followed by a beguiling conversation about Keilson's one hundred years of living and writing. It provides an incomparable insight into the man whom The New York Times recently hailed as 'one of the world's very greatest writers'.