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A noted Expressionist poet and playwright, Else Lasker-Schüler (1869-1945) was celebrated among Berlin's literary avant-garde circles for her extravagant bohemian lifestyle. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement and is best known for works in which she presents a fictionalized version of her life. The subject of critical controversy, these works have been alternately viewed as enigmatic masterpieces and as the failed experiments of a highly egocentric talent.
   Upon the rise of Nazism, Lasker-Schuller was forced to flee Germany and spent the last eight years of her life in Jerusalem, leading an itinerant life, often confused and increasingly steeped in lonliness and poverty.