Reading & talk: Uwe Neumahr - The bookshop of the exiles

They are legends of the "Lost Generation": The American Sylvia Beach and her partner Adrienne Monnier shaped literary Paris for decades with their neighboring bookshops: Beach was James Joyce's publisher on the side. 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 bookshops of Beach and Monnier, were meeting places for writers, intellectuals and artists. This is where the avant-garde around Ernest Hemingway met. With the German invasion, however, literature also came under threat: Ernst Jünger was one of the occupying forces, while Gertrude Stein embraced the new regime in Vichy. Monnier and Beach do everything they can to save their circle of friends. Until Sylvia Beach herself is picked up by the Gestapo. It is a story of great literature and humanity, of persecution and violence - and of the love of two unique women.

Uwe Neumahr has a doctorate in Romance languages and German studies. He works as a literary agent and freelance author and has published non-fiction books on topics such as the Italian Renaissance and the Spanish Golden Age. "Das Schloss der Schriftsteller" was on the Spiegel bestseller list for many weeks and has been translated into six languages. Uwe Neumahr lives with his family near Munich.

In cooperation with: Carl-Schurz-Haus Freiburg