About the life and work of Hans Fallada
Hans Fallada (1893-1947), one of the most famous German writers of the inter-war era, was largely forgotten outside of his native country after his death.
Institutionalized at age 18 for shooting his roommate in a botched suicide pact, later arrested for embezzlement, theft, and the attempted murder of his own wife, Fallada may deserve to be labeled «a colorful character».
Yet it is for his writings that he ought to be remembered. His works, often telling the story of ordinary people in extreme circumstances, are as important as ever.
Fallada made it to the screens 17 times – here’s the list.
The background for the (re-)realeases of Fallada’s works in English.
An essay on the life of Hans Fallada.
Part I: 1893 – 1914.
A handy little list of Fallada / Ditzen’s life and works, year-by-year.
Here is a collection of links to blogosphere reviews and mentions of Hans Fallada’s 1932 novel Little Man, What Now?
If you know about more reviews out there, please leave a comment with a link!
Asylum:
Daily labour – one might say the pleasures and sorrows of work – is something which Fallada represents very well (and made me realise how rarely work is realistically represented in novels that are not explicitly about work). He gets a job as a menswear salesman, and the tedium, camaraderie, fear and occasional …
Here are a few excerpts from blogosphere reviews of Fallada’s wartime novel Every Man Dies Alone (UK title: Alone in Berlin):
Textual Frigate mentions how the novel offers the reader a view of what it was like to be living in Nazi Germany and how it explains the lack of resistance:
Not only do the characters–in a very natural and believable way–show how ordinary Germans dealt with the ethics and morals of living in an evil regime, but they also show how–given enough scrutiny in this envirnonment–everyone is guilty of something. [...] …
According to the German book publisher magazine Buchreport, the new translation of Hans Fallada’s “Alone in Berlin” sold more than 60,000 copies in a few weeks in the UK.
According to the same article, Alone in Berlin also knocked successful crime novelist Stieg Larsson down from the 1st place on the best-seller list of “a leading Irish bookstore chain”.
A little bit vague (and Buchreport give no sources either) but we will take this as a sign that more and more people are discovering the works of Hans Fallada!
Below is a selection of newspaper reviews of Hans Fallada’s Every Man Dies Alone (US) / Alone in Berlin (UK), accompanied by quotes from the reviews.
As I got further into the book, I found myself wondering if life was really like that under the nazi regime, where every word and action could be misconstrued, where fortunes can change in a moment,where you can’t as much as glance at a beaten man in the street for fear of being locked up as a sympathiser.
>> A Book Sanctuary
This quote, from a review of Fallada’s Every Man Dies Alone (Alone in Berlin) in the blog linked above, sums up one of the feelings reading this book invokes. It …
