Bertolt Brecht

By Bertolt Brecht with an introduction by Marc Silberman Edited by John Willett & Ralph Manheim “Casual wickedness, moral hypocrisy, determined self-interest - such are the familiar residents of Brecht's milieu . . .in this complete collection of his known finished stories . . . Chilling perfection.” ―Times Literary Supplement “Highly anecdotal, humourously accepting of the facts of life, like tales told by a clever seaman in a pub.” ―Guardian “These tales are the least known of Brecht's work, yet they underlie most of his major writings in other fields. Terse, mild-voiced, with piercing detail―a mine for short story addicts.” ―Observer Everyone knows that Bertolt Brecht was one of the great 20th-century innovators in theatre―the literary-theatrical equivalent of a Picasso or Stravinsky―and Germany's greatest poet of the last century, but the playwright was also a dazzling writer of stories. Storytelling permeated his art as a dramatist; fundamentally in his plays he was a storyteller. This volume collects the complete short stories written by Brecht, including the prize-winning 'The Monster', and the fragmentary memoir ghost-written by Brecht, 'Life Story of the boxer Samson-Körner'. Brecht scholar Marc Silberman provides an introduction and editorial notes. Paperback342 pagesBloomsbury Publishing, 20158 x 5 inchesISBN 9781472577511Drama, Poetry Anthology

Collected Short Stories of Bertolt Brecht

By Stephen Parker This first English language biography of Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) in two decades paints a strikingly new picture of one of the twentieth century's most controversial cultural icons. First published in 2014 and now available in paperback, it was critically lauded and declared the definitive life of this great artist and writer. Drawing on letters, diaries and unpublished material, including Brecht's medical records, Parker offers a rich and enthralling account of Brecht's life and work, viewed through the prism of the artist. Tracing his extraordinary life, from his formative years in Augsburg, through the First World War, his politicization during the Weimar Republic and his years of exile, up to the Berliner Ensemble's dazzling productions in Paris and London, Parker shows how Brecht achieved his transformative effect upon world theatre and poetry. Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life is a powerful portrait of a great, compulsively contradictory personality, whose artistry left its lasting imprint on modern culture. Paperback704 pagesMethuen Drama, 20156.14 x 1.44 x 9.21 inchesISBN 9781474240000Biography, Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life

By Walter Benjamin Introduction by Stanley Mitchell Translated by Anna Bostock "A small bomb of ideas and vital argument."—Guardian"He does not abolish the distance between us and Leskov, or Brecht, or Kafka; he brings it to life."—Times Higher Education Supplement"If the killing of Lorca was Fascism’s first crime against literature, Benjamin’s death was undoubtedly the second."—The Listener A collection of essays of political philosophy by the renowned mid 20th-century critical theorist and literary critic The relationship between philosopher-critic Walter Benjamin and playwright-poet Bertolt Brecht was both a lasting friendship and a powerful intellectual partnership. Having met in the late 1920s in Germany, Benjamin and Brecht, both independently minded Marxists with a deep understanding of and passionate commitment to the emancipatory potential of cultural practices, continued to discuss, argue and correspond on topics as varied as Fascism and the work of Franz Kafka. Faced by the onset of the ‘midnight of the century’, with the Nazi subversion of the Weimar Republic in Germany and the Stalinist degeneration of the revolution in Russia, both men, in their own way, strove to keep alive the tradition of dialectical critique of the existing order and radical intervention in the world to transform it. In Understanding Brecht we find collected together Benjamin’s most sensitive and probing writing on the dramatic and poetic work of his friend and tutor. Stimulated by Brecht’s oeuvre and theorising his particular dramatic techniques—such as the famous ‘estrangement effect’—Benjamin developed his own ideas about the role of art and the artist in crisis-ridden society. This volume contains Benjamin’s introductions to Brecht’s theory or epic theatre and close textual analyses of twelve poems by Brecht (printed in translation here) which exemplify Benjamin’s insistence that literary form and content are indivisible. Elsewhere Benjamin discusses the plays The Mother, Terror and Misery of the Third Reich, and The Threepenny Opera, digressing for some general remarks on Marx and satire. Here we also find Benjamin’s masterful essay “The Author as Producer” as well as an extract from his diaries that records the intense conversations held in the late 1930s in Denmark (Brecht’s place of exile) between the two most important cultural theorists of this century. In these discussions, the two men talked of subjects as diverse as the work of Franz Kafka, the unfolding Soviet Trials, and the problems of literary work on the edge of international war. Paperback144 pagesVerso, 20245.5 x 7.8 inchesISBN 9781804294796Literary Criticism, Theory and Aesthetics

Understanding Brecht

Original Price: $9.95 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Bertolt Brecht “I think The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage are the great plays of our time.”—Lillian HellmanThe Threepenny Opera broke box-office records in its original Berlin run, 1928-1933, and has had many extremely successful runs in the United States ever since. There have been several English adaptations. The present “book” of Desmond Vesey’s renders every word of the German, including Bertolt Brecht’s Notes. Eric Bentley’s lyrics are also faithful to the German, though they are, of course, written to be sung to the famous Kurt Weill’s music. Kurt Weill’s widow, the great actress and chanteuse Lotte Lenya, has written the introduction, telling the story of how The Threepenny Opera came into being.Paperback128 pagesGrove Press, 1971Originally published in 19284.25 x 0.5 x 7 inchesISBN 9780802150394 Playwriting, Berlin Theater

The Threepenny Opera

By Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, and Georg Lukacs With an afterword by Fredric Jameson "This is vital reading for anyone concerned with the relationship between art and socialism."—John Fowles, Philosophy"They are key texts in the study of modernism, of expressionist drama and of realism, and of many closely related general questions...It is genuinely an indispensable volume."—Raymond Williams"A volume of Adorno is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature."—Susan SontagAn intense and lively debate on literature and art between thinkers who became some of the great figures of twentieth-century philosophy and literature.No other country and no other period has produced a tradition of major aesthetic debate to compare with that which unfolded in German culture from the 1930s to the 1950s. In Aesthetics and Politics the key texts of the great Marxist controversies over literature and art during these years are assembled in a single volume. They do not form a disparate collection but a continuous, interlinked debate between thinkers who have become giants of twentieth-century intellectual history.Paperback256 pagesVerso, 20205 x 7.8 inches ISBN 9781788738583Theory

Aesthetics and Politics

By Bertolt BrechtTranslated by David Constantine and Tom KuhnForeword by Barbara Brecht-Schall “Not a title that would immediately spring to mind in relation to Brecht but, as these translations by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn show, Germany's most innovative dramatist was also a gifted lyrical poet, full of passion and insight...”—Belfast Telegraph “What also surprises is the tenderness [Brecht] could convey...this book shows that there were many sides to him.”—The Herald "These deeply personal poems reveal that "[Brecht's] best love poems match the provocations of his drama"—William Giraldi, New RepublicIn Love Poems, the first volume in a monumental undertaking by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn to translate Bertolt Brecht's poetic legacy into English, the author of The Threepenny Opera emerges not just as one of the most famous playwrights of the twentieth century but also as a fiercely creative twentieth-century poet. With a personal introduction by Brecht's own daughter, Barbara Brecht-Schall, Love Poems features all-new translations of 78 of Brecht's most famous and personal works, composed in both love and grief, including "Remembering Marie A.," "The Song of Surbaya-Johnny," "The actress in exile," "Spring," "The Seventh Psalm," and "Send me a leaf," which was featured in The New Yorker. Paperback144 pagesLiveright Publishing, 20155.5 x 0.4 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9781631491115Poetry

Shop at Neue Bertolt Brecht

Collected Short Stories of Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life

Understanding Brecht

The Threepenny Opera

Aesthetics and Politics

Love Poems

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Bertolt Brecht