Author: The Passenger Publisher: Europa Editions ISBN: 1609456696 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 249
Book Description
The best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from and about Berlin—in the series that’s “like a literary vacation” (Publishers Weekly). In 1990s Berlin, the scars of a century of war were still visible everywhere: coal stoves, crumbling buildings, desolate minimarts, not a working buzzer or elevator. To visit the city then was a hallucinatory experience, a simultaneous journey into the past and into the future. The abandoned ruins, the hidden gems found at the flea market, the illegal basement raves are a thing of the past. The era of Berlin as a site of urban archeology is over. Almost all the damaged buildings have been repaired, squatters have been removed, the shops selling East German furniture have closed down. Without its wounds, the landscape of the city is perhaps less striking but more solid, stronger. Even the city’s inhabitants have lost some of their melancholia, their romantic and self-destructive streak: today you can even find people who come to Berlin to actually work, not just to “create” or idle their days away. Yet, Berlin remains a youthful city and retains its aura as “the capital of cool.” Its only sacrosanct principles are an uncompromising multiculturalism and the belief that its future is yet to be written. This volume of the series includes: The Greatest Show in Town: The Resurrection of Potsdamer Platz by Peter Schneider · Berlin Suite by Cees Nooteboom · Tempelhof: A Field of Dreams by Vincenzo Latronico · Plus: the controversial reconstruction of a Prussian castle, Berlin’s most transgressive sex club and its disappearing traditional pubs, a green urban oasis, suburban neo-Nazis, North Vietnamese in the East, South Vietnamese in the West, techno everywhere and much more . . . “These books are so rich and engrossing that it is rewarding to read them even when one is stuck at home.” —The Times Literary Supplement
Author: Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz Publisher: Metropolitan Books ISBN: 1250317150 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 180
Book Description
A BEST BOOK OF 2021 FOR THE GUARDIAN * FINANCIAL TIMES * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT * MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE * THE TIMES Hailed as a remarkable literary discovery, a lost novel of heart-stopping intensity and harrowing absurdity about flight and persecution in 1930s Germany Berlin, November 1938. Jewish shops have been ransacked and looted, synagogues destroyed. As storm troopers pound on his door, Otto Silbermann, a respected businessman who fought for Germany in the Great War, is forced to sneak out the back of his own home. Turned away from establishments he had long patronized, and fearful of being exposed as a Jew despite his Aryan looks, he boards a train. And then another. And another . . . until his flight becomes a frantic odyssey across Germany, as he searches first for information, then for help, and finally for escape. His travels bring him face-to-face with waiters and conductors, officials and fellow outcasts, seductive women and vicious thieves, a few of whom disapprove of the regime while the rest embrace it wholeheartedly. Clinging to his existence as it was just days before, Silbermann refuses to believe what is happening even as he is beset by opportunists, betrayed by associates, and bereft of family, friends, and fortune. As his world collapses around him, he is forced to concede that his nightmare is all too real. Twenty-three-year-old Ulrich Boschwitz wrote The Passenger at breakneck speed in 1938, fresh in the wake of the Kristallnacht pogroms, and his prose flies at the same pace. Taut, immediate, infused with acerbic Kafkaesque humor, The Passenger is an indelible portrait of a man and a society careening out of control.
Author: The Passenger Publisher: Europa Editions ISBN: 1609456556 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 275
Book Description
An in-depth look at Brazilian culture in the series that collects the best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from around the world. In the second half of the twentieth century Brazil made extraordinary contributions to music, sport, architecture. From bossa nova to acrobatic soccer to the daring architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, the country seemed to embody a new, original vision of modernity, at once fluid, agile, and complex. Seen from abroad, the victory of the far right in the 2018 elections was a rude awakening that suddenly turned the Brazilian dream into a nightmare. For locals, however, illusions had started fading long ago, amid paralyzing corruption, environmental degradation, racial discrimination, and escalating violence. Luckily Brazilians have not lost their desire to fight, minorities are still determined to assert their rights, and, now that the glorious past is dead and buried, a desire to rebuild for the future is emerging. Today the challenge of telling the story of this extraordinary country consists in finding its enduring vitality amid the apparent melancholy. “The Passenger readers will find none of the typical travel guide sections on where to eat or what sights to see. Consider the books, rather, more like a literary vacation.” —Publishers Weekly “Much more than a travel guide, The Passenger is indispensable for any reader who is curious about the world.” —Il Venerdì In this volume: Order and Progress? by Jon Lee Anderson Funk, Pride and Prejudice by Alberto Riva On the River, I Was King by Eliane Brum Also: the road that dissects the Amazon; the TV tycoon who shaped Brazilian history; the neo-Pentecostal community that is winning the hearts (and wallets) of Brazilians; politicized samba dancers, idealist gangsters, and much more . . .
Author: Pierre Frei Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic ISBN: 1555848176 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 570
Book Description
A serial killer stalks the streets of post-World War II Berlin in this international bestselling thriller. Set in a devastated Berlin one month after the close of the Second World War, Berlin has been highly acclaimed. Ben, a German boy retrieving cigarette butts to repackage and sell on the black market, discovers the body of a beautiful young woman in a subway station. Blonde and blue-eyed, she has been sexually assaulted and strangled with a chain. In the scramble to identify the body, the victim is mistaken for an American and a local investigation becomes a matter for the US Military Police. Cpt. John Ashburner and Inspector Klaus Dietrich realize quickly that to solve this apparently motiveless murder they will have to work together. When the bodies of other young women are discovered it becomes clear that this is no isolated act of violence. Pierre Frei has searched the wreckage of Berlin and emerged with an electrifying thriller in the tradition of Joseph Kanon and Alan Furst, in which the voices and stories of the victims themselves provide an intimate portrait of Germany before, during, and after the war. “The historical elements are compelling. . . . [O]nce involved in the story it is difficult to put it down.” —School Library Journal
Author: The Passenger Publisher: Europa Editions ISBN: 1609456564 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
Turkish culture and history is explored in the wide-ranging series that is “like a literary vacation” (Publishers Weekly). The birth of the “New Turkey,” as the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called his own creation, is an exemplary story of the rise of “illiberal democracies” through the erosion of civil liberties, press freedom, and the independence of the judicial system. Turkey was a complex country long before the rise of its new sultan: Born out of the ashes of a vast multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire, Turkey has grappled through its relatively short history with the definition of its own identity. Poised between competing ideologies, secularism and piousness, a militaristic nationalism and exceptional openness to foreigners, Turkey defies easy labels and categories. Through the voices of some of its best writers and journalists—many of them in self-imposed exile—The Passenger: Turkey tries to make sense of this fascinating, maddening country, analyzing how it got to where it is now, and finding the bright spots of hope that allow its always resourceful, often frustrated population to continue living, and thriving. In this volume:The Big Dig by Elif Batuman A Story of Dust and Light by Burhan Sönmez An Author Recommends by Elif Shafak Plus: the thirty-year coup and the dam that is washing away 12,000 years of history, and more.
Author: Aa Vv Publisher: Passenger ISBN: 9781787702196 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 192
Book Description
"Some Japanese stories end violently. Others never end at all, but only cut away, at the moment of extreme crisis, to a butterfly, or the wind, or the moon."--Brian Phillips Visitors from the West look with amazement, and sometimes concern, at Japan's social structures and unique, complex culture industry; the gigantic scale of its tech corporations and the resilience of its traditions; the extraordinary diversity of the subcultures that flourish in its "post-human" megacities. The country nonetheless remains an intricate and complicated jigsaw puzzle, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for stories, reflections, and reportage. The subjects in this volume range from the Japanese veneration of the dead to the Tokyo music scene, from urban alienation to cinema, from sumo to toxic masculinity. Caught between an ageing population and extreme post-modernity, Japan is an ideal observation point from which to understand our age and the one to come.
Author: Melanie Hudson Publisher: HarperCollins UK ISBN: 0008420920 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
‘A mesmerising story of love and hope...the best book that I have read this year’ Penny, Reader Review The most heartbreaking historical fiction novel you will read this year from the USA Today bestseller!
Author: Robert Beachy Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307473139 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
Winner of Randy Shilts Award In the half century before the Nazis rose to power, Berlin became the undisputed gay capital of the world. Activists and medical professionals made it a city of firsts—the first gay journal, the first homosexual rights organization, the first Institute for Sexual Science, the first sex reassignment surgeries—exploring and educating themselves and the rest of the world about new ways of understanding the human condition. In this fascinating examination of how the uninhibited urban culture of Berlin helped create our categories of sexual orientation and gender identity, Robert Beachy guides readers through the past events and developments that continue to shape and influence our thinking about sex and gender to this day.
Author: Joseph Kanon Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1982158670 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
From “the most accomplished spy novelist working today” (The Sunday Times, London), a “heart-poundingly suspenseful” (The Washington Post) espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is returned to East Berlin, needing to know who arranged for his release and what they now want from him. Berlin, 1963. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, nor at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller’s most critical possession: his American passport. Keller’s most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son. The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: Who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He knows that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot. Intriguing and atmospheric, with action rising to a dangerous climax, The Berlin Exchange “expertly describes what happens when a disillusioned former agent tries to come in from the cold” (The New York Times Book Review), confirming Kanon as “the greatest writer ever of historical espionage fiction” (Spybrary).
Author: Various Publisher: Europa Editions UK ISBN: 1787702979 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 319
Book Description
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL WRITING AWARD (2022), ILLUSTRATED TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR*** The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, and reportage from around the world. Its aim, to break down barriers and introduce the essence of the place. Packed with essays and investigative journalism; original photography and illustrations; charts, and unusual facts and observations, each volume offers a unique insight into a different culture, and how history has shaped the place into what it is today. Brimming with intricate research and enduring wonder, The Passenger is a love-letter to global travel. IN THIS VOLUME, Arundhati Roy, Prem Shankar Jha, Tishani Doshi explore the contradictory, terrible and joyful chaos that lies at the heart of India. From its very first contact with the West, India has been subject to great mystification as the survival of ancient rituals, and its variety of languages and cultures, continues to fascinate the world. This narrative is intertwined with a newer one that sees the frenetic change of a society at the forefront of innovation. Success stories coexist alongside stories of daily struggle. A large slice of the population still does not have access to drinking water, and agriculture (still the main source of livelihood for most of the 1.3 billion people who live there) is threatened by climate change. India is a country that does not know how to eradicate one of the most infamous forms of classism/racism: the caste system. From the resistance of the Kashmiri people to that of atheists – hated by all religious communities – from the dances of the 'hijra' in Koovagam to the success of the female wrestler Vinesh Phogat, learn about the contradictory, terrible and joyful chaos that lies at the heart of India.
Author: The Passenger
Author: Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
Author: The Passenger
Author: Pierre Frei
Author: The Passenger
Author: Aa Vv
Author: Melanie Hudson
Author: Robert Beachy
Author: Joseph Kanon
Author: Various