|
| © Claasen Verlag |
Born 6 February 1905 in Berlin
Died 5 May 1982 in Cologne
 |
|
|
| 1913 | |
Moves with her family to Cologne |
| 1921 | Graduates from a Protestant girls’ school | |
| 1921 – 1923 | Attends a girls’ boarding school in Bad Grund | |
| 1925 – 1927 | Attends drama school in Cologne | |
| 1927 – 1929 | Acting engagements in Cologne, Hamburg and Greifswald | |
| 1929 | Ends her career in the theatre and – encouraged by Alfred Döblin – begins to write | |
| 1931 | Publication of her first novel, Gilgi – one of us | |
| 1932 | Film version of (her second novel) The Artificial Silk Girl | |
| 1932 | Marriage to Johannes Tralow; dissolved in 1937 | |
| 1933 | Keun’s books appear on early versions of the Nazi blacklists | |
| 1936 | Liaison with Joseph Roth for the next two years | |
| 1936 – 1940 |
Exile, first in Ostende in Belgium, later in Holland; publishes several novels | |
| 1938 |
Moves to America | |
|
1940 |
Return to Cologne – aided by false newspaper reports of her suicide – and lives there illegally until 1945 | |
| 1966 – 1972 | No further publications; Keun living in poverty and alcoholic dependency; checked into the psychiatric wing of the regional hospital in Bonn | |
| 1981 | Wins the Marieluise-Fleisser Prize of the town of Ingolstadt |
