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The German novelist Hans Fallada (1893-1947), whose most famous work, Little Man - What Now?, became the last bestseller of the Weimar Republic, was one of the very few liberal humanist writers to remain in Germany throughout the Nazi era.
THE ACCLAIMED INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'One of the most extraordinary and compelling novels written about World War II. Ever' Alan Furst Inspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is a gripping wartime thriller following one ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways: the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive the news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France. Shocked out of their quiet...
Available for the first time in English, here is an unforgettable portrayal by a master novelist of the physical and psychological devastation wrought in the homeland by Hitler’s war. Late April, 1945. The war is over, yet Dr Doll, a loner and ‘moderate pessimist’, lives in constant fear. By night, he is haunted by nightmarish images of the bombsite in which he is trapped — he, and the rest of Germany. More than anything, he wishes to vanquish the demon of collective guilt, but he is unable to right any wrongs, especially in his position as mayor of a small town in north-east Germany that has been occupied by the Red Army. Dr Doll flees for Berlin, where he finds escape in a morphine addiction: each dose is a ‘small death’. He tries to make his way in the chaos of a city torn apart by war, accompanied by his young wife, who shares his addiction. Fighting to save two lives, he tentatively begins to believe in a better future. Written with Fallada’s distinctive power and vividness, Nightmare in Berlin captures the demoralised and desperate atmosphere of post-war Germany in a way that has never been matched or surpassed.
One of the great German writers of the 20th century draws from his own life to present a “brave, fearless, and honest” tale of one man’s dark descent into depression and alcoholism (The Sunday Times, London) This astonishing, autobiographical tour de force was written by Hans Fallada in an encrypted notebook while he was incarcerated in a Nazi insane asylum. Discovered after his death, it tells the tale—often fierce, often poignant, often extremely funny—of a small businessman losing control as he fights valiantly to blot out an increasingly oppressive society. In a brilliant translation by Charlotte and A.L. Lloyd, it is presented here with an afterword by John Willett that details the life and career of the once internationally acclaimed Hans Fallada, and his fate under the Nazis—which brings out the horror of the events behind the book.
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It is summer, 1929, and in a small German town a storm is brewing. The shabby reporter Tredup leads a precarious existence working for the Pomeranian Chronicle - until he takes some photographs that offer the chance to make a fortune. In Kruger's bar, the farmers are plotting their revenge on greedy officials.
The return of a “superb” forgotten masterpiece about a young couple living in Weimar Germany during the Nazi’s rise to power (Graham Greene) Written just before the Nazis came to power, this darkly enchanting novel tells the simple story of a young couple trying to eke out a devent life amidst an economic crisis that’s transforming their country into a place of anger and despair. It was an international bestseller upon its release, and made into a Hollywood movie—by Jewish producers, which prompted the rising Nazis to begin paying ominously close attention to Hans Fallada, even as his novels held out stirring hope for the human spirit. Ultimately, it is the book that led to Hans Fallada’s downfall with the Nazis. It is presented here in its first-ever uncut translation, by Susan Bennett, and with an afterword by Philip Brady that details the calamitous background of the novel, its worldwide reception, and how it turned out to be, for the author, a dangerous book. “Painfully true to life . . . I have read nothing so engaging as Little Man, What Now? for a long time.” —Thomas Mann
Wolf among Wolves is a sweeping saga of the collapse of a culture — its economy and government — and the common man’s struggle to survive it all. Set in Weimar Germany soon after Germany’s catastrophic loss of World War I, the story follows a young gambler, Wolfgang Pagel, who loses everything in Berlin, then flees the chaotic city, where worthless money and shortages are causing pandemonium. Once in the countryside, however, Pagel finds a defeated German army that has decamped there to foment insurrection. Somehow, amidst it all, he finds romance. Fast-moving as a thriller, fascinating as the best historical fiction, and with lyrical prose that packs a powerful emotional punch, Wolf among Wolves is an immensely absorbing work of literature.
'It was what we call in the trade a potato...' Tales of low-lifes and grifters trying to make ends meet in pre-War Germany. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.