Claire Goll (1890–1977)

Claire Goll, née Klara Liliane Aischmann, was born into a wealthy, assimilated German-Jewish family in Nuremberg. In 1911, she married Heinrich Studer, a Swiss student who became a publisher, with whom she had a daughter; they were divorced in 1917. She went to study medicine and psychology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where she supported herself working as a journalist for newspapers and pacifist periodicals. She became romantically involved with Rainer Maria Rilke, with whom she remained friends after their affair ended. She made her debut as a writer in 1918 with a collection of poetry. In 1921, she married the poet Yvan Goll (pen name of Isaac Lange), with whom she had been living in Paris since 1918. They befriended other artists and writers such as Braque, Picasso, Joyce, and Gide. At the approach of World War II, the couple fled the Nazis and went to live in the USA; they returned to Paris after the war. In addition to her novels, poems, and short fiction written in both German and French, Claire Studer Goll wrote a series of semi-autobiographical works, including Education barbare (Barbaric Education, 1941), Der gestohlene Himmel (Stolen Heaven, 1962), and Traumtänzerin (Dream Dancer, 1971). Her memoir Ich verzeihe keinem (I Forgive No One), appeared posthumously in 1978.