Nightmare in Berlin: Fallada Hans - (translator) Allan Blunden - Softcover

Fallada, Hans

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1911344501 ISBN 13: 9781911344506

Publisher: Scribe UK, 2017

Synopsis

An unforgettable portrayal of the physical and psychological devastation wrought in the homeland by Hitler s war.

April, 1945. The war is over, yet Dr Doll the mayor of small town in Russian-occupied north-east Germany lives in constant fear. Haunted by nightmarish images of the bombsite in which he and his fellow Germans are trapped, he wishes to vanquish the demon of collective guilt, but he is unable to right any wrongs. Fleeing to Berlin, he and his young wife find solace in morphine addiction, as they try to make their way in the chaos of a city torn apart by war.

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.

The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut which is funded by the German Ministry of the Arts.

About this title

Review:

'I was very struck by the immediacy of Fallada's writing in this book - it feels fresh, modern and direct ... [his] ability to find glimpses of light amidst the darkness makes him a striking chronicler of his time.' --Mariella Frostrup , BBC Radio 4 'Open Book'

'[Nightmare in Berlin] begins in gripping style and is fascinating on the mentality of a population brought to its knees.' --Anthony Gardner, The Mail on Sunday

'[Fallada's] account of the agonized internal conflict of a writer, torn between the self-protective instinct to detach himself from the horror that surrounds him and the imperative to bear witness to it, has the appalled urgency of confession with little hope of absolution. Rawer and more unevenly wrought than Alone in Berlin, Nightmare in Berlin is the necessary precursor to that great work.' --New Statesman

About the Author:

Hans Fallada (1893 1947) was the pen name of German author Rudolf Ditzen, whose books were international bestsellers on a par with those of his countrymen Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. He opted to stay in Germany when the Nazis came to power, and eventually had a nervous breakdown when he was put under pressure to write anti-Semitic books. He was cast into a Nazi insane asylum, where he secretly wrote The Drinker. Immediately after the war he wrote his last two novels, Nightmare in Berlin and Alone in Berlin, but he died before either book was published.

Dr Allan Blunden is a British translator who specialises in German literature. He is best known for his translation of Erhard Eppler s The Return of the State? which won the Schlegel-Tieck Prize. He has also translated biographies of Heidegger and Stefan Zweig, and the prison diary of Hans Fallada.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribe UK
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1911344501
• ISBN 13: 9781911344506
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288