Christopher Isherwood

Edited by Philip Hensher Berlin, in the words of Philip Hensher, editor of this anthology, 'has always been a city of desperate modernity', both in terms of urban architecture—largely a creation of the progressive 19th century, laid waste by World War II, temporary home of the infamous Wall—and in ways of living and behaving. As early as the 1920s it was the gay capital of Europe; the Communist East/free West barrier presented unique problems for a divided population; and in the 1990s, in the aftermath of reunification, the cheap, run-down city became a vibrant centre for creative artists. 'The sense of making it up as you go along is never far away in Berlin.' The stories in this volume are the product of this series of multiple rebirths from the viewpoint of both insiders and outsiders. From pre-1914 there are contributions from Theodor Fontane and Robert Walser; from the Weimar Republic, Alexander Döblin, Vladimir Nabokov, Erich Kästner, Ernst Haffner, Irmgard Keun and Christopher Isherwood; from the Third Reich, Thomas Wolfe, Hans Fallada and Heinz Rein; from the Cold War era, Peter Schneider, Thomas Brussig, Len Deighton, Christa Wolf and Ian McEwan; from post-reunification, Günter Grass, Wladimir Kaminer, Chloe Aridjis, Uwe Timm, Kevin Barry, Jean-Philippe Toussaint and Jenny Erpenbeck. Hardcover400 pagesEveryman Publishing, 2019Originally published in 19794.9 x 1.2 x 7.5 inchesISBN 9781101908174Short Stories, Fiction

Berlin Stories

By Christopher Isherwood “The best prose writer in English.”—Gore VidalOn a train to Berlin in late 1930, William Bradshaw locks eyes with Arthur Norris, an irresistibly comical fellow Englishman wearing a rather obvious wig and nervous about producing his passport at the frontier. So begins a friendship conducted in the seedier quarters of the city, where Norris runs a dubious import-export business and lives in excited fear of his bullying secretary, his creditors, and his dominatrix girlfriend, Anni. As the worldwide economic Depression strangles the masses and the Communists make a desperate stand against Fascism and war, Norris sells himself as political orator, spy, and double agent. He also sells his friends. Like its companion novel, Goodbye to Berlin, Mr Norris Changes Trains offers unforgettable characters struggling in the vortex as the Nazis rise to power. Paperback224 pagesNew Directions, 2013Originally published in 1935 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inchesISBN 9780811220262Fiction

Mr Norris Changes Trains

By Christopher Isherwood “In Isherwood's work, a magic potion of history and invention, the voice is clear, and, no matter how many times we hear it, it always seems to be speaking for the first time.”—Howard Moss, The New York Times“The best prose writer in English.”—Gore VidalA classic of 20th-century fiction, The Berlin Stories inspired the Broadway musical and Oscar-winning film Cabaret.First published in the 1930s, The Berlin Stories contains two astonishing related novels, Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, which are recognized today as classics of modern fiction. Isherwood magnificently captures 1931 Berlin: charming, with its avenues and cafés; marvelously grotesque, with its nightlife and dreamers; dangerous, with its vice and intrigue; powerful and seedy, with its mobs and millionaires―this is the period when Hitler was beginning his move to power. The Berlin Stories is inhabited by a wealth of characters: the unforgettable Sally Bowles, whose misadventures in the demimonde were popularized on the American stage and screen by Julie Harris in I Am A Camera and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret; Mr. Norris, the improbable old debauchee mysteriously caught between the Nazis and the Communists; plump Fräulein Schroeder, who thinks an operation to reduce the scale of her Büste might relieve her heart palpitations; and the distinguished and doomed Jewish family, the Landauers. Paperback410 pagesNew Directions, 2008 Originally published in 19455.2 x 1.3 x 8 inchesISBN 9780811218047Fiction, Short Story, LGBT

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Berlin Stories

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Christopher Isherwood