Nina George is a German writer, best known as the author of The Little Paris Bookshop, an international bestseller, that has been translated in more than 28 languages as of 2015, and sold in more than 500.000 copies. She has published 26 books as well as over hundred short stories and more than 600 columns. George has worked as a cop reporter, columnist and managing editor for a wide range of publications, including Hamburger Abendblatt, Die Welt, Der Hamburger, as well as TV Movie and Federwelt. George writes also under three pen-names. She writes non-fiction about issues of love, sexuality and eroticism, under the pseudonym Anne West. Under her married name Nina Kramer she wrote a thriller in 2008. She also wrote detective novels with her husband and co-writer Jo Kramer, their pseudonym being Jean Bagnol. In 2012 and 2013 she won the DeLiA and the Glauser-Prize. Her first bestselling novelThe Little Paris Bookshop. She moved to Concarneau in France where she now lives with her husband Jo Kramer. George is a member of the administrative board of the Collective Management Organisation VG Wort. She is chairwoman of the VG-Wort ‘e-Book’ working group.
Life and work
Nina George was born in Bielefeld. She dropped out of school before finishing high school and worked in various catering establishments from the age of fourteen. She began since 1993 writing as a freelance journalist and columnist for magazines like Cosmopolitan, Penthouse, TV Movie, Frau im Trend. In 1997, she wrote a book 'Good girls do it in bed, bad ones everywhere' under the pseudonym Anne West. She lived in Hamburg. In 2008, she appeared under the name Nina Kramer in 'Thriller A Life Without Me' about women's reproductive health. George is Member to PEN, Das Syndikat, the Association of German Authors, the Hamburg Authors’ Association, BücherFrauen, the IACW/AIEP, the GEDOK, PRO QUOTE and Lean In. Nina George sits on the board of the Three Seas Writers’ and Translators’ Council, whose members come from 16 different countries. In 2014, she delivered the keynote address in Berlin at the German Writer’s Conference to 140 attending writers. Nina George teaches writing at Literaturbüro Unna, Alsterdamm Kunstschule, Wilhelmsburger Honigfabrik, where she coaches young people, adults and professional authors. After her father's death, she wrote semi-autobiographical novel The Little Paris Bookshop, which talks about bibliotherapy, the fear of death and how this fear holds us back from living life to the fullest, the mourning process, and travel on river boat from Paris in the Canal latéral à la Loire, via Literary Sanary, to the south of Provence. There are meta-literary references to many famous literary works and authors in her novel, including Erich Kästner's idea of a list of books as remedies for different afflictions. At the end there's an appendix where she offers an alphabetical list of books and what she recommends them for, starting with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. She finds inspiration for writing in reading Jon Kalman Stefansson, Anna Gavalda, Dominique Manotti, Erica Jong, and Dorothea Brande.
Works
Books as Nina George
2017 The Little Breton Bistro, a novel
2013 The Little Paris Bookshop, a novel, Crown,
2010 The Moon Player, Knaur, - awarded the Delia 2011 - literary prize for the best German romance of the previous year by the Friends of German romance literature
