The Bookshop of the Exiles. Paris 1940 - Refuge and Resistance - An Evening with Uwe Neumahr

Moderation: Rainer Moritz

Bookshops: spaces of thought, refuge - and seeds of resistance. In the 1920s, "Shakespeare and Company" and "Das Haus der Bücherfreunde" in Paris are meeting places of the avant-garde. At their centre: Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier. But in 1940, with the German invasion, everything changes. The bookshops become havens for German-Jewish exiles, and the booksellers do everything they can to save Walter Benjamin, Gisèle Freund, Siegfried Kracauer and many others. Until Sylvia Beach herself is arrested by the Gestapo. After his acclaimed "Das Schloss der Schriftsteller", Uwe Neumahr now tells the story of Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier. Cleverly and compellingly, he unfolds the history of an era, recounting literary legends and a form of love that asks nothing in return (C.H.Beck publishers).

Organiser: Stiftung Literaturhaus