Life Goes On

Published when the author was just twenty-three, is an autobiographical novel that paints a dark portrait of Germany between the world wars. It tells the story of Max Seldersen – a Jewish store owner modeled on Keilson’s father, a textile merchant and decorated World War I veteran – along with his wife, Else, and son, Albrecht, and the troubles they encounter as the German economy collapses and politics turn rancid.

The book was banned by the Nazis in 1934. Shortly afterward, following his editor’s advice, Keilson emigrated to the Netherlands, where he would spend the rest of his life. Life Goes On is an essential volume for fans of Keilson’s Comedy in a Minor Key and The Death of the Adversary.

At the age of one hundred, with his one copy of the first edition of Life Goes On in hand, he told The New York Times he would love to see his first novel reissued and translated, too. ‘Then you would have my whole biography,’ he told them. He died at the age of one hundred and one.