Books by Anna Seghers

ANNA SEGHERS (1900-1983) was one of the most important German women writers of the twentieth century. Born Netty Reiling in Mainz and of Jewish descent, she received a doctorate in art history at the University of Heidelberg, joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1928, and soon began to publish novels and short stories. After the 1940 Nazi invasion of France, Seghers, her husband and their two children, and Victor Serge and his son sailed from Marseilles to Mexico. She gained international recognition with The Seventh Cross (1939); published in the United States in 1942, it was the basis for the 1944 MGM film starring Spencer Tracy and was one of the only depictions of Nazi concentration camps during World War II, in either literature or film. After the war she returned to Germany, settling in East Berlin, where she was active in the cultural and political development of the GDR.