Nightmare in Berlin
- Author Hans Fallada
- Narrator Stefan Rudnicki
- Publisher Blackstone Publishing
- Run Time 8 hours and 27 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Fiction: general and literary, Historical fiction, Narrative theme: Interior life.
Titles Purchased
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Price p/Title
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What to expect
Available for the first time in English, here is an unforgettable novel about the desolation of Hitler’s postwar Germany.
The war is over, yet Dr. Doll, a loner and “moderate pessimist,” lives in constant fear. By night, he is still 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 northeast Germany that has been occupied by the Red Army.
Dr. Doll flees this place 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.
Nightmare in Berlin captures the demoralized and desperate atmosphere of postwar Germany in a way that has never been matched or surpassed.
Critics Review
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“Has something of the horror of Conrad, the madness of Dostoevsky, and the chilling menace of Capote.”
New York Times -
“Here was a writer whose courage was to stay behind and turn his suffering and the suffering of others into extraordinary literature.”
Financial Times -
“Painful and poignant.”
Daily Mail (London) -
“A gripping and brilliantly written work.”
Berliner Zeitung -
“This is a tense, atmospheric, almost dreamlike novel, shifting between moods of despair and hope. It is rich in internal stories…bold, strident, ironic, and often ambivalent fiction.”
Irish Times -
“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.”
BBC Radio 4
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