Women Writing Home

Women writers offer us rich and diverse perspectives on exile, yet they remain relatively unexplored in the scholarship. This book aims to address this omission by illuminating the life and work of four German-speaking writers exiled in Britain after 1933. Gerda Mayer, Gabriele Tergit, Ruth Feiner and Eva Priester, in different and unique ways, all articulate ideas of (national) identity and home in their work, opening up new ways of understanding the impact of exile and gender on belonging. Using Heimat theory, nomadic subjectivity and transnationalism, the womens works are interrogated to encourage a reassessment of traditional conceptions of Heimat and belonging for refugees, exiles, and those distanced - whether physically or emotionally - from 'home'.

Angharad Mountford completed her PhD at the Institute of Modern Languages Research (now the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies), School of Advanced Study, University of London. She is an active member of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies.

Contents: Introduction – Belonging, Heimat and Transnationalism – Historical Context – Gerda Mayer and the Exile Experience through Verse – Gabriele Tergit: A British Berliner – Ruth Feiner: A Young Woman of Europe – Eva Priester: An Austrian by Choice – Conclusion.