{"title":"Fiction--World Literature--Germany--20th Century","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"ginster","title":"Ginster","description":"\u003cb\u003eWhen World War I breaks out, a young architecture student in Munich does everything in his power to avoid being enlisted into the German military in this perceptive, wickedly humorous novel by a prominent twentieth-century writer, journalist, and film critic.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eGinster \u003c\/i\u003eis a war novel about not going to war; about how war, far from the front, comes to warp every aspect of outer and inner life and to infect the workings of language itself. The subject is World War I, but this novel by the brilliant twentieth-century sociologist, journalist, and film critic Siegfried Kracauer, first published in 1928, has as much to say about what it means to live under the sulking great powers and blood-imbrued satrapies of today as it does about the inflamed self-righteousness of late imperial Germany. In \u003ci\u003eGinster, \u003c\/i\u003eas in Greek tragedy, massacre occurs offstage, arriving only as \"news,\" but the everyday horror of a society engineered for the continual production of violence is not to be denied. Ginster, the Chaplinesque antihero, intent chiefly on saving his own skin, works hard to keep his distance from the war machine, and yet making a living, he discovers, is all about keeping it running. How different, in the end, is his dreamy self-absorption from the empty military language that has come to pervade every aspect of civilian life in the homeland?\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1681378140\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781681378145\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Kracauer, Siegfried, Skoggard, Carl, Von Moltke, Johannes\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"New York Review of Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Oct 2025)","offer_id":46079979913413,"sku":"9781681378145","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781681378145.jpg?v=1776033386"},{"product_id":"the-glass-bead-game-magister-ludi-a-novel","title":"The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) a Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe final novel of Hermann Hesse, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, \u003ci\u003e The Glass Bead Game\u003c\/i\u003e is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSet in the 23rd century, \u003ci\u003eThe Glass Bead Game\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and scientific arts, such as mathematics, music, logic, and philosophy, which he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 0312278497\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9780312278496\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Hesse, Hermann, Ziolkowski, Theodore, Winston, Richard\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Holt Paperbacks\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Holt Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Dec 2002)","offer_id":46080495288517,"sku":"9780312278496","price":21.84,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9780312278496.jpg?v=1776037880"},{"product_id":"effingers","title":"Effingers","description":"\u003cb\u003eThree generations of German Jewish family undergo the tumult, upheaval, and brutality of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history in this panoramic and skillfully nuanced family drama, rich with gossip and incident, capturing a Germany now lost to time.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGabriele Tergit's \u003ci\u003eEffingers \u003c\/i\u003eis a novel, at once epic and intimate, about the lives and fates of three generations of a German Jewish family. Beginning in 1878 and ending in 1948, we follow the Effingers, a family of modest craftsmen from southern Germany, who are joined through marriage to two families of high-society financiers in Berlin, the Goldschmidts and the Oppners. The Effingers soon rise to prominence as one of the most important German industrialist families in Berlin, but with the outbreak of World War I, they fall on hard times and must navigate the tumultuous changes of the Weimar Republic. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFull of parties and drama and delicious gossip, and featuring a kaleidoscopic cast of characters, \u003ci\u003eEffingers \u003c\/i\u003eis a keenly observed account of German Jewish life in all its richness and complexity. Tergit's precise and limpid prose dazzles in Sophie Duvernoy's elegant translation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWoefully underrated when it first appeared in 1951, and only recently rediscovered in Germany, \u003ci\u003eEffingers \u003c\/i\u003eis a meditation on identity and nationality that establishes Tergit as one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1681379791\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781681379791\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Tergit, Gabriele, Duvernoy, Sophie\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"New York Review of Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Nov 2025)","offer_id":46080837648581,"sku":"9781681379791","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781681379791.jpg?v=1776040687"},{"product_id":"berlin-shuffle","title":"Berlin Shuffle","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA prophetic lost classic from interwar Germany, following a group of Berliners navigating economic turmoil and the rise of fascism, now translated into English for the first time\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBerlin in the 1920s is the largest city in Europe, a cultural mecca, and a political mess: a hedonistic Babylon, though there's little glamour for the hundreds of thousands out of work, the war wounded, the prostitutes, and the beggars. Come evening they too want to shed their cares at the Jolly Huntsman pub, where they gather to drink, dance, and reassert their pride. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut there's disaster lurking in the alleys and flophouses, a disaster that the twenty-two-year-old author Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz saw coming for his nation. In this dark comedy of petty theft, soapbox speeches, and bar fights is the disarray of a country devouring itself. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTragically, Germany's self-destruction engulfed the author, who was killed five years after finishing this novel. When Boschwitz's \u003ci\u003eThe Passenger \u003c\/i\u003ewas rediscovered in 2021, it was heralded as a masterpiece that captured the terror of the Nazi reign. Now, \u003ci\u003eBerlin Shuffle\u003c\/i\u003e--his literary debut from 1937, finally available in English, with a preface by the preeminent translator Philip Boehm--brings to life the society that would enable fascism's takeover. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe triumph of one of world literature's spectacular talents, \u003ci\u003eBerlin Shuffle \u003c\/i\u003eis a dire warning sent from a pivotal moment in history to our own time.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1250869498\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781250869494\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Boschwitz, Ulrich Alexander, Boehm, Philip\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Metropolitan Books\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Metropolitan Books","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover (Dec 2025)","offer_id":46081107230917,"sku":"9781250869494","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781250869494.jpg?v=1776043040"},{"product_id":"the-gossip-columnist","title":"The Gossip Columnist","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eA KIRKUS \"GET IT\" NOVEL\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e\"A stunning novel crackling with historical insight\".- KIRKUS REVIEWS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eA gossip columnist's pursuit of the truth in Nazi Germany . . .\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen twenty-something Bella lands a job she doesn't really want-as the gossip columnist for Berlin's largest newspaper-she's thrust into a new, glamorous world. Then the Nazis take over, and her job turns into a lethal assignment.As the Nazis rise swiftly to power, Hitler's top aide, Josef Goebbels, ruthlessly takes control-from the information printed in gossip columns to the city's movie industry, where Goebbels earns a reputation as a rampant predator.To escape their deadly authority, Bella and her editor, Paul, flee to a brothel. There, they collect scraps of information and repackage them as gossip that weaves through wartime Berlin, sending the Nazis into an enraged search for the source. But as they fight to share truth amidst endless propaganda, Bella and Paul find out the hard way that the truth can be deadly, too.Romantic, propulsive, and relentlessly vivid, \u003cem\u003eThe Gossip Columnist\u003c\/em\u003e is a sharp, cinematic novel that's as shocking as gossip and as real as history.\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-13: 9798993024516\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Burke, Martyn\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Darkspur Press\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Darkspur Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Jan 2026)","offer_id":46081814560965,"sku":"9798993024516","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9798993024516.jpg?v=1776049677"},{"product_id":"the-others-1","title":"The Others","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecrets, lies and love as the DDR collapses. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is 1989, and in a small Baltic city in East Germany, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, three young people from vastly different backgrounds become friends. Armando is a factory worker from Mozambique, Lolita is a medical student from India, and Theo is an East Berliner who dreams of being a writer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Armando and Lolita make a grisly discovery, they find themselves caught up in the politics of Theo's homeland more than ever before. While a quiet revolution sweeps through Eastern Europe, and the Berlin Wall teeters, the three find themselves entangled in a poignant love triangle which threatens their futures.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the world order shifts, their three lives are bound together in a web of love, lies and fears, leaving each irrevocably changed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for Sheena Kalayil: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"An expert novel, The Others is superbly organized, with a steady, tense air of suspense, fine and persuasive emotion, and, above all, truly rich characters alive in a real history. The last pages produced in me a gasp of amazement.\"\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e- Jonathan Lethem, Author of 'Motherless Brooklyn', National Book Critics Circle Award winner \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'Kalayil's deft prose is both precise and lyrical, vividly conjuring place, time and characters in flux.'\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e- Joanna Nadin, Sunday Times no 1. bestselling author and Professor of Creative Writing, University of Bristol\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'I found it hard to put Sheena Kalayil's fourth novel down, so powerful is the untold story it tells. Yes, The Others is a love story, but it's also magnificently more; I loved the delicate intertwining themes of identity and displacement; setting and historical and political context are incredibly skilfully deployed; but there is also a rare and precious breadth of imagination in the novel. The writing is beautifully confident and flowing, and the characters and their journeys made me cry!'\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e- Emma Henderson, Author of 'The Valentine House'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1915789389\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781915789389\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Kalayil, Sheena\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Fly on the Wall Press\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Fly on the Wall Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Jun 2025)","offer_id":46100230832325,"sku":"9781915789389","price":16.14,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781915789389.jpg?v=1776648445"},{"product_id":"the-hothouse","title":"The Hothouse","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/em\u003e traces the tragic final two days in the life of a minor German politician, Keetenheuve, a man disillusioned by the corruption of his country after World War II. Following his self-imposed exile during the war, Keetenheuve returns to the hothouse: the city of Bonn, the capital of that new postwar capitalist nation, West Germany. Until this point he has led a life guided by principle and political optimism. Here, in spellbinding internal monologue and jarring montage, he meets his end. \u003cem\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/em\u003e is an existential masterpiece and a portrait of a moral man crushed by an immoral world. Bitterly controversial at home, a cult writer abroad, Koeppen (1906-1996) brought a volcanic modernist style to German literature that remains unparalleled to this day. His uniquely radical voice and breathtaking prose is rendered magnificently by Michael Hofmann.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBitterly controversial at home, a cult writer abroad, Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996) brought a volcanic modernist style to German literature that remains unparalleled to this day. His uniquely radical voice and breathtaking prose are rendered magnificently by Michael Hofmann. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 0811240002\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9780811240000\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Koeppen, Wolfgang, Hofmann, Michael, Mishra, Pankaj\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (May 2026)","offer_id":46291805569221,"sku":"9780811240000","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9780811240000.jpg?v=1780113109"},{"product_id":"death-in-rome","title":"Death in Rome","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eDeath in Rome\u003c\/em\u003e tells the story of four members of a German family--a former SS officer, a young man preparing for the priesthood, a composer, and a government administrator--reunited by chance in the decaying beauty of postwar Rome. A chilling account of Nazis after the war, here the older generation is resentful but not repentant. From the old unreconstructed Nazi officer Judejahn (the name has a suggestion of \"Jew hunter\") to the young and apparently gay priest, from the supposedly reformed Mayor to the acclaimed but haunted young composer Siegfried, no clear hope emerges. And amid haunting flashbacks and against the shadows of Rome with its imperial echoes, the darkness is alive. Brace yourself: the novel takes place over a two-day period, mostly at night, and it's certain that the present will be governed by the past, if you let it. In \u003cem\u003eDeath in Rome\u003c\/em\u003e, Koeppen amply demonstrates that evil doesn't simply cease once it loses a war--it seeps out, hungry to exist in other forms. And as Siegfried confesses: \"In my daydreams and nightmares I see the Browns and the nationalist idiocy on the march again.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith \u003cem\u003ePigeons in the Grass\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/em\u003e, it concludes Koeppen's masterful trilogy. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 0811240029\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9780811240024\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Koeppen, Wolfgang, Hofmann, Michael, Cohen, Joshua\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (May 2026)","offer_id":46291846398149,"sku":"9780811240024","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9780811240024.jpg?v=1780113171"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.inveni.store\/collections\/fiction-world-literature-germany-20th-century.oembed","provider":"Inveni","version":"1.0","type":"link"}