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What work of fiction would you like to read for April?
Poll added by: Jennifer W
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Right, better get cracking on...Every Man Dies Alone (USA title) / Alone in Berlin (UK title) by Hans Fallada
Every Man Dies Alone (USA title) / Alone in Berlin (UK title) by Hans FalladaI am about 50 pages in. This novel really brings alive the day-to-day hell of life under the Nazis. Imagine everyone in a position of influence being a small minded, vindictive Daily Mail reader, and your neighbours being encouraged to report anything that might be considered inappropriate. These reports leading to persecution, prison, or the concentration camp.
The tension started from the first page and is mounting with each passing chapter. I dread to think what it's going to be like if it carries on like this.
It's really interesting to read a German perspective on Nazi Germany.
It should be a great discussion in April.
I have just finished reading...
Alone In Berlin (aka Every Man Dies Alone (USA title))
Hans Fallada was all but forgotten outside Germany when this 1947 novel, Alone in Berlin (US title: Every Man Dies Alone), was reissued in English in 2009, whereupon it became a best seller and reintroduced Hans Fallada's work to a new generation of readers.
I came to this book having read More Lives Than One: A Biography of Hans Fallada by Jenny Williams, which was the perfect introduction into the literary world of Hans Fallada.
Alone In Berlin really brings alive the day-to-day hell of life under the Nazis - and the ways in which people either compromised their integrity by accepting the regime, or, in some cases, resisted. The insights into life inside Nazi Germany are both fascinating and appalling. The venom of Nazism seeping into every aspect of society leaving no part of daily existence untouched or uncorrupted.
Alone In Berlin is also a thriller, and the tension starts from the first page and mounts with each passing chapter. I can only echo the praise that has been heaped on this astonishingly good, rediscovered World War Two masterpiece. It's a truly great book: gripping, profound and essential.
It should be a great discussion.
5/5
Every Man Dies Alone (USA title) / Alone in Berlin (UK title) by Hans Fallada
A truly great book...an utterly gripping thriller" - Sunday Telegraph
Fallada's great novel, beautifully translated by the poet Michael Hoffman, evokes the daily horror of life under the Third Reich, where the venom of Nazism seeped into the very pores of society, poisoning every aspect of existence. It is a story of resistence, sly humour and hope" - Ben Macintyre, The Times
Alone in Berlin haas something of the horror of Joseph Conrad, the madness of Fyodor Dostoyevsky ands the chilling of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood"" - Roger Cohen, New York Times
This book sounds fantastic - and I think it would be good to read a German perspective on Nazi Germany.
Click here for an interesting article from 2010 about the book and which convinced me it would make a perfect BYT fiction group read.. Here's the first two paragraphs...
A little-known thriller about the German resistance against the Nazis has become the sleeper hit of the summer – more than 60 years after it was written.
Now it has finally been translated into English, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is taking bestseller lists by storm on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK alone, Penguin Classics has sold more than 100,000 copies in just three months and is expecting to exceed 250,000 sales within the year – astonishing figures considering that most English novels barely sell a few thousand copies.
By the way, this live webchat with Dennis Johnson, the publisher who brought Hans Fallada back to prominence with English readers is worth a read.
Who was Hans Fallada?
Hans Fallada (21 July 1893 – 5 February 1947) was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include Little Man, What Now? (1932) and Every Man Dies Alone (1947).