Die Buchhandlung der Exilanten

Book Presentation & Conversation with Uwe Neumahr, München

They are legends of the “Lost Generation”: American Sylvia Beach and her partner Adrienne Monnier shaped literary Paris for decades with their neighboring bookstores, not least the English-speaking scene: Beach’s side job was as James Joyce’s publisher. But in 1940, with the German occupation, everything changed for them too. The cultural oasis in the heart of the city became a refuge for German-Jewish exiles and a place of resistance. In his moving book, award-winning author Uwe Neumahr tells the story of this couple: In the Roaring Twenties, Shakespeare and Company and La Maison des Amis des Livres, the bookstores owned by Beach and Monnier, are meeting places for writers, intellectuals, and artists. This is where the avant-garde around Ernest Hemingway gathers. But with the arrival of the Germans, literature is also in danger: Ernst Jünger was among the occupiers, while Gertrude Stein cozyed up to the new regime in Vichy. Monnier and Beach did everything they could to save their circle of friends. Until Sylvia Beach herself was picked up by the Gestapo. It is a story of great literature and humanity, of persecution and violence—and of the love between two unique women.