The Artificial Silk Girl

By Irmgard Keun
Translated by Kathie von Ankum

Doris is going to be a big star. Wearing a stolen fur coat and recently fired from her office job, she takes an all-night train to Berlin to make it in the movies. But what she encounters in the city is not fame and fortune, but gnawing hunger, seedy bars, and exploitative men - and as Doris sinks ever lower, she resorts to desperate measures to survive. Very funny and intensely moving, this is a dazzling portrait of roaring Berlin in the 1920s, and a poignant exploration of the doomed pursuit of fame and glamour.

Paperback
208 pages
Penguin Classics, 2019
Originally published in 1932
5.08 x 0.35 x 7.76 inches
ISBN 9780241382967
Weimar Literature, Neue Sachlichkeit