Author Guide · Memoir, Essays & Poetry
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In September 1942 Ruth Klüger, ten years old, was deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt with her mother. She went on to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Christianstadt, escaped from a death march in 1945, and in 1947 emigrated to New York. Forty-five years later, by then a professor of German literature in California, she published weiter leben (1992), a memoir that keeps interrupting itself to argue with museums, memorials and her own memory. It was translated into ten languages, and in 2008 Vienna gave away 100,000 copies of it in a city-wide reading campaign. She also wrote on German literature, women writers and poetry, much of it in German only. This guide covers her 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1992–2018 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Ruth Klüger is best known for weiter leben (1992), her memoir of a Holocaust childhood, which she rewrote in English as Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (2001). Its sequel, unterwegs verloren (2008), and most of her essays and poetry exist only in German. English readers should start with Still Alive; below is why the German and English versions are not the same book.
Where to Start with Ruth Klüger
If you read English and want her essential book
→ Still Alive (2001) — her own English version of the memoir.
If you read German and want the original
→ weiter leben (1992) — the 1992 memoir that made her name.
If you want what happened after the war
→ unterwegs verloren (2008) — America, academia and the break with Martin Walser.
If you want her as a critic
→ Katastrophen (1994) — essays on Jews and war in German literature.
11 Ruth Klüger Books, in Order
weiter leben
Her childhood in Nazi Vienna, the camps of Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Christianstadt, the escape from a death march with her mother, and the years as a refugee in Bavaria. The account keeps breaking off for commentary on memory, mourning and Holocaust museums. Published by Wallstein in Göttingen, it became a bestseller after praise on ZDF’s Literarisches Quartett and won the Grimmelshausen Prize in 1993.
Katastrophen
Eight essays on war, destruction and Jewish characters in German-language literature. It includes “Gibt es ein ‘Judenproblem’ in der deutschen Nachkriegsliteratur?”, first published in the mid-1980s and now counted among the founding texts of research on literary antisemitism. Available in German only.
Frauen lesen anders
Essays asking whether women read literature differently from men, and what the canon looks like from a woman reader’s side. Published by dtv in Munich. Available in German only.
Still Alive
Klüger’s own English version of weiter leben, published by the Feminist Press in New York. She described it as a parallel memoir rather than a translation, written for her sons and her American students, and held it back until after her mother’s death. It covers the same years but is reshaped for readers outside Germany. In Britain it appeared in 2003 as Landscapes of Memory (Bloomsbury).
Gelesene Wirklichkeit
Essays, speeches and lectures on how far a writer may change history, with examples from Plato to Philip Roth, Schiller’s Joan of Arc and Mary Stuart, and Tolstoy’s Napoleon. Holocaust literature is one of its test cases. Available in German only.
Gemalte Fensterscheiben
Essays on poetry and how to talk about it, published by Wallstein in Göttingen. Available in German only.
unterwegs verloren
The sequel to weiter leben: her life after the war, an American academic career, an unhappy marriage and divorce, her two sons, and portraits of friends and enemies, including the publisher Siegfried Unseld and Martin Walser. Reviewers split: the Neue Zürcher Zeitung praised it, the Süddeutsche Zeitung found her portraits of men too harsh. Available in German only.
Was Frauen schreiben
The companion to Frauen lesen anders: essays on contemporary women writers and the question of whether women also write differently. Published by Zsolnay. Available in German only.
Zerreißproben
Her own poems, written from 1944 onwards, including some from the camps, each followed by a commentary on when and why she wrote it. Klüger said poems helped her survive the Holocaust. Available in German only.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
A study of the nineteenth-century Austrian writer, defending her against the image of a moralising provincial author and reading her as an advocate for the oppressed. Available in German only.
Gegenwind
Her last book in her lifetime: poems with her interpretations, following the pattern of Zerreißproben. Published by Zsolnay; the publisher quotes her as saying she never got away from poetry. Available in German only.
In What Order to Read Ruth Klüger
For English readers the order is simple: Still Alive, because almost everything else is in German. If you read German, start with weiter leben and follow it with unterwegs verloren, which picks up where the first memoir stops.
The criticism can be read in any order. Katastrophen is the best way in, since it covers the same ground as the memoir from the scholar’s side; the two books on women readers and writers belong together; the two poetry books are best read after the memoirs, where several of the poems first appear.
A reading path
1. Still Alive (2001) or weiter leben (1992)
2. unterwegs verloren (2008)
3. Katastrophen (1994)
4. Zerreißproben (2013)
5. Gelesene Wirklichkeit (2006)
Everything Else Ruth Klüger Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 7 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Scholarship and lectures
5
5 books · 1971–2001
- 1971The Early German Epigramher study of Baroque poetry, published as Ruth K. Angress
- 1996Von hoher und niedriger Literaturlectures on high and low literature
- 1996Knigges Umgang mit Menschena lecture on Knigge’s book of manners
- 2000Dichter und Historikera lecture on facts and fiction
- 2001Schnitzlers Damen, Weiber, Mädeln, Frauenon the women in Arthur Schnitzler
Published after her death
2
2 books · 2021–2023
- 2021Wer rechnet schon mit Lesern?collected essays on literature
- 2023Anders lesenessays on Jews and women in German-language literature
The years · 1931–2020
Quick facts about Ruth Klüger
- Known for
- She survived Theresienstadt and Auschwitz as a child and wrote one of the most argumentative Holocaust memoirs, as both a survivor and a professor of German literature.
- 1931
- Born in Vienna
- 1947
- Emigrates to the United States
- 1992
- weiter leben
- 2002
- Open letter breaking with Martin Walser
- 2020
- Dies in Irvine, California
- Born
- 30 October 1931, Vienna; her father, a Jewish doctor, was murdered
- Survived
- Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Christianstadt, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen
- Emigrated
- To New York in 1947, with her mother
- Education
- Hunter College; PhD in German, University of California, Berkeley (1967)
- Taught
- Princeton (1980–1986) and UC Irvine, where she was professor emerita of German
- Honours
- Grimmelshausen Prize (1993), Thomas Mann Prize (1999), Goethe Medal (2005)
- Died
- 5 October 2020, Irvine, California, aged 88
The red mark is 1992: weiter leben, the memoir she published at sixty.
How Ruth Klüger Writes: Memory with Footnotes
Klüger writes memoir as a literary critic would: the story of the camps is constantly interrupted by her own commentary on it. She questions what she remembers, argues with how the Holocaust is presented in museums and memorials, and rejects the idea that suffering taught anyone anything. “Auschwitz was no instructional institution,” she writes in Still Alive.
She refuses the role of the grateful survivor. Her mother is drawn without softening, which some reviewers found harsh; she objects to Jewish mourning rules that leave women out; and she insists on Vienna, not Auschwitz, as where she comes from. The German and English versions differ because she rewrote rather than translated, adjusting what she explains for each readership.
Her criticism makes the same move from the other side: Katastrophen reads German literature for how it treats Jews, and her poetry books print the poems with her own commentary. For another survivor who wrote with a scientist’s precision, see the books of Primo Levi.
Frequently asked questions about Ruth Klüger’s books
How many books has Ruth Klüger written?
At least eighteen, nearly all in German. This page covers 11 key books, from weiter leben (1992) to Gegenwind (2018), and lists 7 more: scholarly studies and lectures, including her first book, The Early German Epigram (1971), and two essay collections published after her death.
What are Ruth Klüger’s books in order?
weiter leben (1992), Katastrophen (1994), Frauen lesen anders (1996), Still Alive (2001), Gelesene Wirklichkeit (2006), Gemalte Fensterscheiben (2007), unterwegs verloren (2008), Was Frauen schreiben (2010), Zerreißproben (2013), Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (2016) and Gegenwind (2018).
Where should I start with Ruth Klüger?
With Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (2001) if you read English, and with weiter leben (1992) if you read German. Most of her other books have no English edition.
What is Ruth Klüger’s most famous book?
weiter leben: Eine Jugend (1992), her memoir of a childhood in Nazi Vienna, Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. It was translated into ten languages, and in 2008 Vienna distributed 100,000 copies in its “Eine Stadt. Ein Buch.” campaign. Its English version is Still Alive.
Is Still Alive the same book as weiter leben?
No. Klüger wrote Still Alive (2001) herself as a parallel memoir rather than a translation, for her sons and American students. In Britain it was published in 2003 as Landscapes of Memory; that is the same book as Still Alive.
Is Ruth Klüger still alive?
No. She died on 5 October 2020 at her home in Irvine, California, aged 88. German and Austrian reports give the date as the night to 6 October, European time.
What happened between Ruth Klüger and Martin Walser?
They had been friends since the 1940s, and Walser recommended weiter leben to the publisher Suhrkamp, which turned it down. In 2002 Walser published Tod eines Kritikers, a novel widely read as an attack on the critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki. On 27 June 2002 Klüger published an open letter to him in the Frankfurter Rundschau, saying she felt hurt and insulted by his portrayal of a critic as a “Jewish monster”, and broke off the friendship. She returns to it in unterwegs verloren (2008).
What prizes did Ruth Klüger win?
For weiter leben she received the Grimmelshausen Prize in 1993. Later honours include the Thomas Mann Prize (1999), the Austrian State Prize for Literary Criticism, the Goethe Medal (2005), the Lessing Prize of the Free State of Saxony (2007) and the Theodor Kramer Prize (2011).
Did Ruth Klüger speak in the German Bundestag?
Yes. On 27 January 2016, Holocaust Remembrance Day, she gave the memorial speech in the Bundestag and praised Germany for opening its borders to refugees.
Footnotes
- Ruth Klüger — Wikipedia
- Still Alive (book) — Wikipedia
- Ruth Kluger — Jewish Women’s Archive
- Ruth Kluger, In Memoriam — University of California Academic Senate
- unterwegs verloren, review digest — Perlentaucher
- Ruth Klüger ist tot — Jüdische Allgemeine, 2020
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I don’t hail from Auschwitz, I come from Vienna.”
— Ruth Klüger, Still Alive (2001)
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