»Old Shatterhand, das bin ich«

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Julian Preece

"Gunter Grass is the most influential German writer since the Second World War. His books have always challenged conventional attitudes and outraged readers. From The Tin Drum (1959), where he broke down the wall of silence which surrounded ordinary people's involvement in the Third Reich, to Too Far Afield (1995), which upset the reigning consensus on the success of German reunification, he has attracted controversy. He is also an undisputed master of the German language, whose style has inspired novelists in the English-speaking world, from Salman Rushdie and Graham Swift to John Irving." "This book shows how Grass's experiences as a teenager in Hitler's Germany shaped his thinking, both in his literary writing and in his role as campaigner and critic. Julian Preece draws on unpublished correspondence, the memoirs of contemporaries and the most recent research, to present a rounded portrait of the most important German writer since Thomas Mann."--BOOK JACKET.

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Annie Ernaux

She is thirty years old, a teacher married to an executive, mother of two infant sons. She lives in a nice apartment. And yet she is a frozen woman. Like millions of others, she has felt her enthusiasm and curiosity - the strength and happiness that once were a part of her - ebb and then disappear under the weight of her daily routine. The very condition that everyone around her seems to consider normal for a woman is killing her. In A Frozen Woman, Annie Ernaux shows once again her gift for lending power and authenticity to a distinctly womanist voice. While each of Ernaux's books contains an autobiographical element, A Frozen Woman, is the most autobiographical of all. Where A Woman's Story described her relationship with her mother, and Simple Passion described a fleeting love affair with a younger man, A Frozen Woman concentrates the spotlight on Annie herself. Mixing affection, rage and bitterness, this is Ernaux at her most harrowing, affecting and inspiring.

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Jeffrey Meyers

This biography of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), a giant of American literature who invented both the horror and detective genres, is a portrait of extremes: a disinherited heir, a brilliant but exploited author and editor, a man who veered radically from temperance to rampant debauchery, an agnostic who sought a return to religion at the end of his life. Acclaimed biographer Jeffrey Meyers explores the writer's turbulent life and career, including his marriage and multiple, simultaneous romances, his literary feuds, and his death at an early age under bizarre and troubling circumstances. - Back cover.

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Anatol Goldberg

Pp. 120-123 deal with Ehrenburg's attitudes to Judaism and antisemitism as reflected in the discourse on the Jewish question in his first novel "Julio Jurenito" (1922). States that in general he tried to view the world from a genuinely cosmopolitan standpoint. The Jews are described by Jurenito as a people who constantly question the established order and try to undermine it by inventing subversive religions (e.g., Christianity, communism) which eventually become the established order and must then be repudiated. Ehrenburg was proud of this tragic and unique destiny of the Jews, who were persecuted because of it, and he was opposed to a nationalist solution (Zionism). Pp. 226-240 deal with Stalin's postwar anti-Jewish campaign, and Ehrenburg's role as the regime's "token Jew, " a cover for its antisemitic policies. States that there is no evidence that Ehrenburg betrayed his Jewish friends who were murdered by Stalin, but faults him for lying about what was happening to them at the time.