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What I Saw

Reports From Berlin 1920-33
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( 1,101 ratings, 123 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
What I Saw by Joseph Roth is a collection of insightful and vivid observations capturing Berlin during the tumultuous Weimar Republic era. Roth, a renowned journalist, weaves his experiences and impressions of the city's vibrant yet chaotic atmosphere, illustrating the social and political changes that were unfolding. His acute attention to the everyday life and cultural milieu offers a fascinating window into a pivotal period in history.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you are fascinated by early 20th-century European history and have an interest in exploring the vivid, often poignant descriptions of Berlin's transformation during the Weimar Republic era through the eyes of a keen observer. The author's journalistic prowess provides a captivating glimpse into the cultural and political shifts of the time.

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A classic of reportage: Roth's compassionate, incisive account of Berlin in the 1920s, chronicling the moral bankruptcy of the Jazz Age and the rising threat of fascism.

A classic of reportage: Roth's compassionate, incisive account of Berlin in the 1920s, chronicling the moral bankruptcy of the Jazz Age and the rising threat of fascism.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

In 1920, Joseph Roth, the most renowned German correspondent of his age, arrived in Berlin, the capital of the Weimar Republic. He produced a series of impressionistic and political writings that influenced an entire generation of writers, including Thomas Mann and the young Christopher Isherwood.

Roth, like no other German writer of his time, ventured beyond Berlin's official veneer to the heart of the city, chronicling the lives of its forgotten inhabitants – the Jewish immigrants, the criminals, the bathhouse denizens, and the nameless dead who filled the morgues.

Warning early on of the threat posed by the Nazis, Roth evoked a landscape of moral bankruptcy and debauched beauty, creating in the process an unforgettable portrait of a city.

What I Saw captures the raw and vibrant soul of Berlin during an era of immense change, offering readers a profound insight into a tumultuous period that foreshadowed the darkness to come.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

What I Saw by Joseph Roth is praised for its brilliant and timeless prose, offering keen insights into the Weimar Republic's vibrant and chaotic Berlin. Critics admire Roth's ability to capture the city's modernity and atmosphere with lyric irony and rage, making the book a necessary addition to any literary collection. His reportage, hailed for its compact and poetic style, showcases the power of detailed observation, blending history with the elegance of storytelling.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781783788484

Publisher: Granta Books

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 04 August 2022

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Granta Books

Contributors:

  • Translated by Michael Hofmann
  • Translated by Michael Hofmann

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 13.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 162g

Pages: 288

About the Author

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.

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