Hermann Kesten

Who was Hermann Kesten?

Hermann Kesten was a German novelist and dramatist. He was one of the principal literary figures of the New Objectivity movement in 1920's Germany.

The literary prize Hermann Kesten Medal has been given in his honor since 1985.

Kesten was born in Nuremberg in 1900 as son of a Jewish merchant. In the early 1920s, while a student in Frankfurt, he was already writing plays and forging literary plans. Even at this early stage he seems to have envisaged twin careers for himself, as a writer and as a publisher. Personal contacts - Kesten always relished the company of fellow writers and publishers - facilitated the move to Berlin to take up, in 1928, a post as an editor with the left-wing publisher Kiepenheuer. In the same year he published his first novel, Josef sucht die Freiheit. Two more novels quickly followed: Ein ausachweifender Mensch and Gluckliche Menschen.

1933, when Hitler came to power, he left Germany and in Paris Kesten began working for the Amsterdam publisher Allert de Lange.