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OverviewA powerful novel about prejudice, violence, and complicity in Nazi Germany, this spare and evocative work interrogates shows how a group of people can slip towards extremism and barbarity in the blink of an eye. The time is the 1930s. Our philosopher is Herr Veilchenfeld, a renowned thinker and distinguished professor, who, after his sudden dismissal from the university, has retired to live quietly in a country town in the east of Germany. Our narrator is Hans, a clever and inquisitive boy. He relates a mix of things he witnesses himself and things he hears about from his father, the town doctor, who sees all sorts of people as he makes his rounds, even Veilchenfeld, with his troubled heart. Veilchenfeld is in decline, it’s true—he keeps ever more to himself—but the town is in ever better shape. After the defeat of the Great War and the subsequent years of poverty, things are looking up. The old, worn people are heartened to see it. The young are exhilarated. It is up to them to promote and patrol this new uplifting reality—to make it safe from the likes of Veilchenfeld, whose very existence is an affront to it. And so the doctor listens, and young Hans looks on. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Gert Hofmann , Eric Mace-Tessler , Michael HofmannPublisher: The New York Review of Books, Inc Imprint: NYRB Classics Dimensions: Width: 12.80cm , Height: 1.10cm , Length: 20.30cm Weight: 0.187kg ISBN: 9781681377582ISBN 10: 1681377586 Pages: 176 Publication Date: 26 September 2023 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Not yet available This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release. Table of ContentsReviews"""The best novel I've read that describes events through the eyes of a child is little known and a minor masterpiece....Hans, the son of a small-town doctor, watches as the life of his fascinating neighbor, Professor Veilchenfeld, unravels and is then destroyed...In this learned old man, Hofmann condenses the industrialized extermination of millions...To recount it through the limited and fragmented understanding of an innocent child was an inspired authorial choice."" —Ian McEwan" Author InformationGert Hofmann (1931-1993) was a German writer and scholar of German literature. Originally an author of radio plays, he became one of postwar Germany’s most prolific novelists, his fiction often examining the continued resonance of Nazism in Germany. His accolades include the Ingeborg-Bachmann Prize and the Alfred Döblin Prize. Eric Mace-Tessler is a translator and educator. Born in Brooklyn, he has lived in Germany and Switzerland for three decades. Michael Hofmann is a poet and translator. He is the author of two books of essays and five books of poems, most recently One Lark, One Horse. He has translated several books for NYRB Classics, including Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, Jakob Wassermann’s My Marriage, and Gert Ledig’s Stalin Front, Kurt Tucholsky's Castle Gripsholm, and edited The Voyage That Never Ends, an anthology of writing by Malcolm Lowry. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |