House of Exile

When the Nazis began destroying lives across Europe and artists became state enemies, Nelly Kroeger, a tall, blonde ex-barmaid, and writer and political activist Heinrich Mann - twenty-seven years her senior and top of the list at Goebbels's book-burnings - fled together, first to France, then to Los Angeles. Interweaving stories from their friends, relatives and literary contemporaries - Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, James Joyce, Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf - House of Exile tells the remarkable story of Nelly and Heinrich, a couple divided by class and their own families, and of their unconventional love in a time of war.

'Full of intelligence, wit, humour and a deep sense for the oddness of people and the mysteries of the creative life', 'She can soar high over an historical era and then plunge to seize upon tiny details of ordinary life that bring her famous, long-gone people close to us in an intimacy that is almost shocking', 'Outstanding ... Juers dazzlingly exemplifies the radical possibilities when tensions between fiction and fact are suspended', 'Juers brings back into existence an entire pantheon of twentieth-century literary greats ... she burrows deep into the psyches of her subjects ... imaginative and intelligent ... so enthralling', wise and magesterial ... invaluable ... the story she tells is a useful and grim reminder of what happens when politics fail

Evelyn Juers is an Australian writer, essayist, literary critic and publisher. She was born in Germany, moved to Australia in 1960, and has lived in Hamburg, Sydney, London and Geneva. She has a PhD from University of Essex, on the Brontës and the practice of biography, and has contributed to a wide range of Australian and international publications. She is co-publisher of the literary magazine HEAT and the Giramondo Publishing company.