The Women Authors of Group 47

  • "What I love most are books about the invisible, and this is a fascinating study of a great continent of German literary history that has long been kept invisible." - Clemens Setz 
  • Interview with the author on New Books in German

Nicole Seifert tells the story of Group 47 from a new perspective: that of the women. The result is nothing short of sensational. The Women Authors of Group 47 makes it imperative to rethink contemporary German literature, to reorganize the literary landscape.

There were many more female authors at the notorious Group 47 meetings than Ingeborg Bachmann and Ilse Aichinger, but they have been forgotten, they fell out of history, were usually not even included in the conversation about the group - and if they were, then not as authors of their texts, but as desirable bodies or tragic beings. Nicole Seifert tells of the women authors' experiences in Group 47, of their lives in the 1950s and 1960s in West Germany and of their works. A clever, eye-opening book that immediately makes you want to start reading. 

Writers such as Gisela Elsner and Gabriele Wohmann need to be re-read, writers such as Ruth Rehmann, Helga M. Novak and Barbara König need to be rediscovered.  This is a completely new look at Group 47 and post-war literature that leads right up to the present day.

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  • Publisher: Kiepenheuer&Witsch
  • Release: 08.02.2024
  • ISBN: 978-3-462-00353-6
  • 352 Pages
  • Author: Nicole Seifert
Buchcover von The Women Authors of Group 47: Die Autorinnen der Gruppe 47
Nicole SeifertThe Women Authors of Group 47
Portrait von Nicole Seifert
© Heike Steinweg
Nicole Seifert

Nicole Seifert ist gelernte Verlagsbuchhändlerin und promovierte Literaturwissenschaftlerin. Sie lebt in Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein und arbeitet als Autorin, Übersetzerin und Literaturkritikerin. 2021 erschien bei Kiepenheuer & Witsch ihr Buch »FrauenLiteratur. Abgewertet, vergessen, wiederentdeckt«, das eine Debatte über weibliches Schreiben auslöste. 2024 folgte »Einige Herren sagten etwas dazu. Die Autorinnen der Gruppe 47«. Im selben Jahr erhielt sie den Luise Büchner Preis für Publizistik.