From September 1948, Alice Schmidt is supposed to document her husband's life as a writer. From then on, she notes in gifted notebooks with homemade ink what Arno Schmidt is working on, what he is reading, and with whom he is corresponding. Black market trade, hunger, and poverty characterize the lives of the Schmidts in the refugee camp Mühlenhof in Cordingen during this time, but the couple also enjoys many walks in the woods, which later become part of Schmidt's work, and the evening reading sessions. A trip to Hamburg to Schmidt's then-publisher Rowohlt is as welcome a break from the arduous daily life for Alice Schmidt as visits from radio staff who interview the author about his first book. After the diaries from 1954 to 1956, which vividly depict the time when Arno Schmidt was struggling to establish himself as an author in post-war Germany, it is recorded.