At the beginning of October, the German translation of Lili Körber’s exile novel “Farewell to Yesterday” was presented at the Literaturhaus Vienna. The author’s grandnieces, whose travel expenses were covered by the Jewish Welcome Service, were also present.
The previously unpublished novel Farewell to Yesterday by Lili Körber, written around 1949, has now been published in German by the publishing house “Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis” under the title Abschied von Gestern. Marjorie Burnelle and Helen Gleize, the author’s grandnieces, were in attendance at the presentation at the Literaturhaus Vienna. Körber’s estate administrator Viktoria Hertling and publisher Peter Graf paid tribute to the author, actor Robert Stadlober read passages from her work, and Katharina Prager from the Vienna City Hall Library hosted the evening.
An extensive journalistic and literary oeuvre
Lili Körber was born in Moscow in 1897, as daughter of an Austrian import merchant. The family had to leave Russia during the First World War and moved to Vienna. Körber received her doctorate from the University of Frankfurt am Main in 1925 and then continued to live in Vienna, where she wrote for the “Arbeiter-Zeitung” and the “Rote Fahne,” among others. In March 1938, she fled from the Nazis to New York, where she lived until her passing in 1982. Körber leaves behind an extensive body of journalistic and literary work, in which she deals intensively with National Socialism and exile.
In the newly published autobiographical novel, she tells the story of a married couple who fled from Vienna to New York to live in an apartment building with German-speaking, often Jewish, emigrants. The book follows the couple in their often futile attempts to escape social decline and financial difficulties. The evening was organized by the Austrian Exile Library.
Lili Körber, “Abschied von Gestern,” 317 pages,
Publisher “Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis,” ISBN 978-3-946990-85-7
