Geno Hartlaub (1915–2007)

Genovefa "Geno" Hartlaub was born in Mannheim, Germany, the daughter of art historian and museum director Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub and his wife Félicie. She attended the Odenwald School in Heppenheim, where she graduated in 1934. Her father was fired from his job by the Nazis, who refused to allow her to attend university. She completed an apprenticeship and went to work as a journalist, becoming a foreign correspondent. During World War II, she worked in France and Norway.

From 1945 to 1948, she worked for the magazine Die Wandlung in Heidelberg. Afterwards she worked as a freelance editor for various publishers, and from 1962 to 1975, she served as an editor of the newspaper Allgemeine Sonntagsblatt in Hamburg.

Her novels and narratives, sometimes published under the pen name Muriel Castorp, included Noch im Traum (1943), Anselm, der Lehrling (1947), Der Mond hat Durst (1963), and Lokaltermin Feenreich (1972. In her work, she frequently mixed realistic everyday description with fairytale and mythical dream worlds. She also wrote books about her travels and radio plays.

Geno Hartlaub was a member of the post-war Gruppe 47 and the German PEN Center. In the 1950s, she edited and published the literary estate of her older brother, historian Felix Hartlaub, who went missing as a soldier in the closing days of World War II.