Berlin Alexanderplatz

<p><b>Alfred Döblin</b> one of the great figures of German modernism was born in 1878 to a Jewish family. He moved to Berlin at the age of ten where he remained for the next 45 years. Döblin's 1929 masterpiece<i> Berlin Alexanderplatz </i>made him famous but he was forced to flee to France and then Los Angeles during the years of the Nazi dictatorship. He died in 1957.<br><br> <b>Michael Hofmann</b> is a poet and translator from the German. For Penguin he has translated four books by Hans Fallada in addition to works by Franz Kafka Ernst Jünger Irmgard Keun and Jakob Wassermann.</p> This new English translation by Michael Hofmann - the first in more than 75 years - expertly captures the fecundity originality and musicality of Döblin's masterpiece ... A bold and dazzling collage of a novel Ace translator Michael Hofmann has delivered an exhilarating new version of Alfred Döblin's <i>Berlin Alexanderplatz</i>: that street-smart slang-filled richly allusive tale of crime punishment and social crisis in the capital of Weimar Germany just before Hitler's rise to power. Hofmann's firecracker prose fizzes through this revolutionary trip into the lower depths of big-city life The classic Weimar novel ... Long branded untranslatable a fluent pacy new translation by Michael Hofmann gainsays that assumption opening up the book for English-speakers Reading it was the most wonderful experience Franz Biberkopf is one of the modern world's richest literary characters as memorable as Woyzeck Oblomov or Madame Bovary <i>Berlin Alexanderplatz</i> is Europe's <i>Moby-Dick ... </i>both seriously significant and a great deal of fun A flashing kaleidoscope of a novel ... Michael Hofmann's translation has a vivid immediacy Brutal and prophetic ... a turning point in the history of the German novel <i>Berlin Alexanderplatz</i> which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year still fascinates as a cautionary tale by shining light on the most obscure parts of the human soul. <p><b>The great novel of 1920s Berlin life in a superb new translation by Michael Hofmann<br><br></b>Franz Biberkopf is back on the streets of Berlin. Determined to go straight after a stint in prison he finds himself thwarted by an unpredictable external agency that looks an awful lot like fate. Cheated humiliated thrown from a moving car; embroiled in an underworld of pimps thugs drunks and prostitutes Franz picks himself up over and over again - until one day he is struck a monstrous blow which might just prove his final downfall.<br><br>A dazzling collage of newspaper reports Biblical stories drinking songs and urban slang <i>Berlin Alexanderplatz </i>is the great novel of Berlin life: inventing styling and recreating the city as reality and dream; mimicking its movements and rhythms; immortalizing its pubs abattoirs apartments and chaotic streets. From the gutter to the stars this is the whole picture of the city.<br><br><i>Berlin Alexanderplatz </i>brought fame in 1929 to its author Alfred Döblin until then an impecunious writer and doctor in a working-class neighbourhood in the east of Berlin. Success at home was short-lived however; Doblin a Jew left Germany the day after the Reichstag Fire in 1933 and did not return until 1945. This landmark translation by Michael Hofmann is the first to do justice to <i>Berlin Alexanderplatz </i>in English brilliantly capturing the energy prodigality and inventiveness of Döblin's masterpiece.</p> <p><b>The great novel of 1920s Berlin life in a superb new translation by Michael Hofmann<br><br></b>Franz Biberkopf is back on the streets of Berlin. Determined to go straight after a stint in prison he finds himself thwarted by an unpredictable external agency that looks an awful lot like fate. Cheated humiliated thrown from a moving car; embroiled in an underworld of pimps thugs drunks and prostitutes Franz picks himself up over and over again - until one day he is struck a monstrous blow which might just prove his final downfall.<br><br>A dazzling collage of newspaper reports Biblical stories drinking songs and urban slang <i>Berlin Alexanderplatz </i>is the great novel of Berlin life: inventing styling and recreating the city as reality and dream; mimicking its movements and rhythms; immortalizing its pubs abattoirs apartments and chaotic streets. From the gutter to the stars this is the whole picture of the city.<br><br><i>Berlin Alexanderplatz </i>brought fame in 1929 to its author Alfred Döblin until then an impecunious writer and doctor in a working-class neighbourhood in the east of Berlin. Success at home was short-lived however; Doblin a Jew left Germany the day after the Reichstag Fire in 1933 and did not return until 1945. This landmark translation by Michael Hofmann is the first to do justice to <i>Berlin Alexanderplatz </i>in English brilliantly capturing the energy prodigality and inventiveness of Döblin's masterpiece.</p>