Escape to Life ─ German Intellectuals in New York: a Compendium on Exile After 1933

This book is based on a symposium held in New York, co-sponsored by New York University, the Zentrum fur Literatur- and Kulturforschung Berlin), and the German Center for Research and Innovation (New York). Thirty contributions include symposium presentations as well as a number of added articles and an introductory essay by the editors. "Escape to Life" in the title is a reference to the book published in Boston in 1939 (by Klaus and Erika Mann). Seven decades later the topic of exile is the same, but the perspectives presented here are quite different. Contributors to this volume address the impact of exile over time--on the lives and intellectual work of the exiles, including Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, and others. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Eckart Goebel, New York University, USA; Sigrid Weigel, Zentrum fur Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin, and Technische Universitat Berlin, Germany.