Weights and Measures

A masterly performance Evening Standard

Joseph Roth's dark fable about a man torn between resolve and restlessness in Eastern Europe's borderlands

In the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Anselm Eibenschütz is appointed inspector of weights and measures in a remote border town. There he encounters a shadowy world of gamblers and smugglers – and discovers his wife is pregnant by another man. Right and wrong prove hard to judge, as Eibenschütz is drawn into a destructive affair of his own.

In this late masterpiece, Joseph Roth depicts the slow corruption of a decent man at the lawless edge of a crumbling world.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Translated by David Le Vay.

JOSEPH ROTH (1894-1939) was born into a Jewish family in the small town of Brody in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied first in Lemberg and then in Vienna, and served in the Austrian army during World War I. He later worked as a journalist in Vienna and Berlin, travelling widely, staying in hotels and living out of suitcases, while also becoming a prolific writer of fiction. Roth left Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933 and settled in Paris, where he died just before the outbreak of World War II. As well as his masterpiece The Radetzky March, he was the author of over two dozen works of fiction and non-fiction, including On the End of the World, The Coral Merchant and Flight Without End, all published by or forthcoming from Pushkin Press.

DAVID LE VAY (1915-2001) was a consultant surgeon in the NHS for over thirty years. Combining his medical work with a literary career, he authored medical textbooks and biographies of prominent historical surgeons, as well as translating works from French, German, Spanish and Latin.