Publisher Description

In a brilliant translation by Charlotte and A.L. Lloyd, it is presented here with an afterword by John Willett that details the life and career of the once internationally acclaimed author, and his fate under the Nazis - which brings out the horror of the events behind the book.This astonishing, autobiographical tour de force was written by Hans Fallada in an encrypted notebook while he was incarcerated in a Nazi insane asylum. Discovered after his death, The Drinker tells the tale - often fierce, poignant, and extremely funny - of a small businessman losing control as he fights valiantly to blot out an increasingly oppressive society.In a brilliant translation by Charlotte and A.L. Lloyd, it is presented here with an afterword by John Willett that details the life and career of the once internationally acclaimed author, and his fate under the Nazis - which brings out the horror of the events behind the book.

Author Biography

Hans Fallada (1893-1947) was the pen name of German author Rudolf Ditzen, whose books were international bestsellers on a par with those of his countrymen Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. He opted to stay in Germany when the Nazis came to power, and eventually had a nervous breakdown when he was put under pressure to write anti-Semitic books. He was cast into a Nazi insane asylum, where he secretly wrote The Drinker. Immediately after the war he wrote his last two novels, The Nightmare and Alone in Berlin, but he died before either book could be published.

Review Quote

'For all the self-destruction, inebriation, and Sisyphean torture of The Drinker , a visionary clear-headedness prevails ... it is easy to imagine that the horror of Sommer's life was also that of Fallada's in Nazi Germany, to hear the echo of the author's cries in those of his narrator, and to recall the Kurosawa quote: 'In a mad world, only the mad are sane.'

Details