"No-one looks behind your face"

Erich Kästner's books have become true classics, read with equal enthusiasm by children and adults. Celebrating his 100th birthday, this biography, based on Kästner's recently-released private archives, sheds new light upon his life and his work.

From private documents and interviews with personal friends, Sven Hanuschek has gathered information that does not always match the familiar picture of the good-natured humorist. Kästner was the first German writer to extend his success to journalism, the cinema, the political cabaret and the theatre. Although his books were banned by the Nazis, he chose to remain in Germany and, after the war, helped to re-establish his country's literary life.

This is the gripping biography of a life that reflected an entire epoch – and also of a man who tried stubbornly to reconcile himself to the contradictions of his time.