About the Author
Hilde Spiel, born on October 19, 1911, in Vienna and raised there, was a versatile writer and journalist. Although born to Jewish parents, she was raised Catholic. She attended Eugenie Schwarzwald's reform school and studied philosophy and Völkerpsychologie, earning her doctorate in 1936. At just 22, she published her first novel. In 1933, she joined the Social Democratic Party. At the end of 1936, she emigrated to London and married her first husband, Peter de Mendelssohn. Her children were born in 1938 and 1945. In 1963, she returned to Vienna and worked for the "FAZ," "Weltwoche," "The Guardian," and "Theater heute." As an author of novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs, she received numerous awards, including the Goethe Medal from the Goethe-Institut for her outstanding contributions to the German language. Hilde Spiel died on November 30, 1990, in Vienna.