Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
JOSEPH ROTH (1894-1939) was a prolific journalist and novelist. One of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, his work traces the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the rising fascist threat in Europe. On Hitler's assumption of power, he was obliged to leave Germany for Paris, where he died in poverty a few years later. His books include What I Saw, Job, The White Cities, The String of Pearls and The Radetzky March, all published by Granta Books. MICHAEL HOFMANN is the highly acclaimed translator of Joseph Roth, Franz Kafka, Hans Fallada, Bertolt Brecht, and many more. A poet and essayist, he also teaches at the University of Florida.The value of these feuilletons has nothing to do with typographical perspective, only with their non-stop brilliance, irresistible charm and continuing relevance
- Jeffrey Eugenides, New York Times
This is a marvellous book, and a welcome addition to the ever-growing canon of Roth's work in English. It offers proof, if proof were needed, that he is as brilliant and original a journalist as he is a storyteller, casting his eye and cocking his ear where lesser writers never venture
- Paul Bailey, Sunday Times
Keen-eyed and inquisitive... [Roth's] reports form Weimar-era Berlin capture in diamond-glitter prose the booming, brash capital
- Boyd Tonkin, Independent
An instant classic
- Roy Foster, Financial Times
A splendid and necessary book
- Nicholas Lezard,
A supreme observer, a cynical romantic with a flair for prophecy and an understanding of the slow fester of moral outrage... Outstanding
Irish Times
Thrilling... [Roth's] slivers of Berlin life during the Weimar Republic catch a city juddering with a sense of its own modernity, even as he listens for sighs escaping through the cracks
Observer
It is the eye for the telling detail that ends up astonishing us the most...a splendid and necessary book
Guardian
This dazzling selection of his eye-witness accounts of the chaos, sleazy defiance and despair that summed up the short-lived Weimar Republic shimmers with lyric irony and rage
Irish Times
Often abstract and sometimes melancholy, this book chronicles Berlin's diastolic years: the relaxed hedonistic interval between the blood-pounding systoles of two world wars... [Roth] captures atmosphere as precious few modern journalists can
Independent on Sunday
Roth was the poet of Berlin streetlife in the 1920s. It gives some idea of the sophistication of Weimar culture that these philosophical, challenging and often fantastical pieces of writing by Roth (wonderfully translated by the poet Michael Hofmann) were originally newspaper columns
Evening Standard
Roth writes as if Walter Benjamin had teamed up with Monsieur Hulot. He understands how perspective and value vanish in the modern city
Guardian
Superbly written, each compacted scene revealing some fresh angle on modern life as it was emerging in the chaos of Weimar Germany...On almost every page there is a sentence you want to read aloud to someone
New Statesman
What I Saw collects the best of Roth's journalism, where 'reportage' is a dream union of theory and poetry, somewhere between the insights of Walter Benjamin and Maeve Brennan's New Yorker essays
Time Out
[The] attraction is part curiosity, part genuine historical interest, a delight in the turn of phrase of a major novelist and the glimpses of decay and of disillusion which would contribute to the fall of the Weimar Republic... Read this book, but let it be the bridge to the novels of a fine and neglected writer
Morning Star
At times his sentences are perfect, near poetry in syntax and diction...poignant and prescient
Kirkus Reviews
Roth brings alive the sights, sounds and smells of Berlin with the deftest touch of his pen... A master of compression, as of compassion... This book is a treat
Literary Review
It seems Roth foresaw it all. Disturbing to the point of mesmerism in its power of observation, this is one of the most valuable collections of writing Granta has ever published
Good Book Guide
Roth offers fascinating and idiosyncratic glimpses of a new urban modernity. Translator Michael Hofmann and publisher Granta have rescued Roth from obscurity by dusting down and translating a string of his novels as well as these striking essays...with the journalism they have struck gold
Tribune