Alfred Doblin - Berlin Alexanderplatz - 1930

Alfred Döblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz

Original German edition

Berlin , Fischer 1930
18 x 15cm, 529 pp

slight stains on the cover, clean interior, a beautiful copy of this masterpiece of 20th-century literature


Berlin Alexanderplatz follows the journey of Franz Biberkopf, a criminal just released from prison, into the underworld, where he comes to realize that there is no way out for him. A 2002 survey of one hundred writers from around the world ranked it among the hundred best books in history.
The novel is set in the working-class neighborhoods near Alexanderplatz, in 1920s Berlin. The narration is carried out with multiple viewpoints, and various effects (sounds, newspaper articles, songs, speeches, references to other books). Depicting the Berlin underworld of the 1920s, it was the target of Nazi book burnings as early as 1933.

Berlin Alexanderplatz reminds one of Ulysses by James Joyce, Döblin having in fact rewritten his book after reading the work of the Irishman. It has also been compared to John Dos Passos (Manhattan Transfer). The proximity to Brecht, a friend of Döblin, is also clear, the influences between the two authors having been reciprocal. Moreover, Berlin Alexanderplatz has been linked to Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night, which, too, sums up a street, a square, a system of streets, houses and men in order to create a lyric form closely tied to current events.
(wikipedia)