Berlin Alexanderplatz

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Alfred Döblin

Fischer S. Verlag, Frankfurt, Germany, 2013; originally published 1929, German

Fiction

ISBN: 9783100153319

Considered one of the masterpieces of modern European literature and the first German novel to adopt the technique of James Joyce. It tells the story of Franz Biberkopf, who, on being released from prison, is confronted with the poverty, unemployment, crime, and the burgeoning Nazism of 1920s Germany. As Franz struggles to survive in this world, fate teases him with a little pleasure before cruelly turning on him.

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Mels Crouwel

On Mels Crouwel’s Book List

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1980 television miniseries adaption of this 1929 novel is also worth seeing.

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