Berlin Alexanderplatz

The inspiration for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's epic film, Berlin Alexanderplatz, is considered one of the most important works of the Weimar Republic and twentieth-century literature. This great novel of Berlin and the doomed Weimar Republic is gruesome, farcical, and appalling, word drunk, and pitch dark. In Michael Hofmann's extraordinary new translation, Alfred Döblin's masterpiece is available in English for the first time. As Döblin writes in the opening pages, the subject of this book is the life of the former cement worker and haulier Franz Biberkopf in Berlin. As our story begins, he has just been released from prison, where he served time for some foolish actions, and is now back in Berlin, determined to go straight. Initially, he succeeds. However, despite doing well for himself financially, he becomes involved in a conflict with an unpredictable external force that resembles fate. Three times, this force attacks him and disrupts his plans. The first attack comes with dishonesty and deception, and he manages to recover. Then, it strikes him a low blow, from which he has trouble getting up, almost being counted out. Finally, it hits him with monstrous and extreme violence.