Six Lives

To this day, Anna Maria Jokl inspires generations of young readers with Die Perlmutterfarbe (adapted for the screen in 2008). When the author wrote the »children’s novel for almost everyone«, she was already in exile in Prague, escaping persecution by the Nazis. »Geographically speaking, I had six lives, all of them in respective hotspots of our time«, she wrote later: »Vienna Berlin Prague London Berlin-Berlin Jerusalem«. This volume follows these stations and presents autobiographical notes by the writer from her estate for the first time, including encounters with Johannes R. Becher, Albert Ehrenstein and Samuel Beckett. Together with previously unpublished stories and letters, a fascinating account of the writer’s life can be found here in its immediacy and authenticity. Jokl writes about images and encounters, escape and exile, about new beginnings in Prague and Berlin, in London and Jerusalem, but also of the Shoah as an irreversible turning point. The multi-layered work of an individual emerges in this volume, directed against the silence.

»Just in time for her 100th birthday, a volume with material from Jokl's estate has now been published by Jüdischer Verlag: Six Lives. It includes a personal essay by her friend Itta Shedletzky, photos and an afterword by literary scholar Jennifer Tharr. Tharr has brought together autobiographical material, short stories and letters that significantly expand the image we have of Anna Maria Jokl.« Carsten Hueck, Frankfurter Rundschau