The neversink library

Abschied von den Eltern ist eine im Jahr 1961 erschienene autobiographische Erzählung und eines der Hauptwerke von Peter Weiss. Anlass des Textes war die durch den Tod von Weiss' Mutter im Dezember 1958 und seines Vaters im März 1959 ausgelöste „Erkenntnis eines gänzlich mißglückten Versuchs von Zusammenleben, in dem die Mitglieder einer Familie ein paar Jahrzehnte lang beieinander ausgeharrt hatten“. (Quelle: [Wikipedia](

"One of the most significant novels in Latin American literature, written by Cuba's most important modern novelist--to win a bet with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In the early 1970s, friends Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Augusto Roa Bastos and Alejo Carpentier reached a joint decision: they would each write a novel about the dictatorships then wreaking misery in Latin America. Garcia Marquez went on to write The Autumn of the Patriarch and Roa Bastos I, the Supreme. The third novel in this remarkable trinity is Reasons of State, hailed as the most significant novel ever to come out of Cuba. As with Garcia Marquez, Reasons of State is a bold story, boldly told -- daring in its perceptions, rich in lush detail, inventive in prose, and deadly compelling in its suspenseful plot. Inexplicably out of print for years, it tells the tale of the dictator of an unnamed Latin American country who has been living the life of luxury in high-society Paris. When news reaches him of a coup at home, he rushes back and crushes it with brutal military force. But returning to Paris he is given a chilly welcome, and learns that photographs of the atrocities have been circulating among his well-to-do friends. Meanwhile World War One has broken out, and another rebellion forces the dictator back across the ocean. As he struggles with the Marxist forces beginning to find footing in his own country, and Europe is devastated, Carpentier constructs a masterful and biting satire of the new world order"--

The stirring, never-before-translated story of a single, pregnant, and wickedly nervy young secretary making her way through a Germany succumbing to the Nazis. Irmgard Keun's first novel "Gilgi "was an overnight sensation upon its initial publication in Germany, selling thousands of copies, inspiring numerous imitators, and making Keun a household name--a reputation that was only heightened when, a few years later, Keun sued the Gestapo for blocking her royalties. The story of a young woman trying to establish her independence in a society being overtaken by fascism, "Gilgi" was not only a brave story, but revolutionary in its depiction of women's issues, at the same time that it was, simply, an absorbing and stirring tale of a dauntless spirit. Gilgi is a secretary in a hosiery firm, but she doesn't intend to stay there for long: she's disciplined and ambitious, taking language classes, saving up money to go abroad, and carefully avoiding both the pawing of her boss and any other prolonged romantic entanglements. But then she falls in love with Martin, a charming drifter, and leaves her job for domestic bliss--which turns out not to be all that blissful-- and Gilgi finds herself pregnant and facing a number of moral dilemmas. Revolutionary at the time for its treatment of sexual harassment, abortion, single motherhood, and the "New Woman," "Gilgi" remains a perceptive and beautifully constructed novel about one woman's path to maturity. It is presented here in its first-ever translation into English.

"Sanna and her ravishing friend Gerti would rather speak of love than politics, but in 1930s Frankfurt, politics cannot be escaped--even in the lady's bathroom. Crossing town one evening to meet up with Gerti's Jewish lover, a blockade cuts off the girls' path--it is the Furher in a motorcade procession, and the crowd goes mad striving to catch a glimpse of Hitler's raised "empty hand." Then the parade is over, and in the long hours after midnight Sanna and Gerti will face betrayal, death, and the heartbreaking reality of being young in an era devoid of innocence or romance. In 1937, German author Irmgard Keun had only recently fled Nazi Germany with her lover Joseph Roth when she wrote this slim, exquisite, and devastating book. It captures the unbearable tension, contradictions, and hysteria of pre-war Germany like no other novel. Yet even as it exposes human folly, the book exudes a hopeful humanism. It is full of humor and light, even as it describes the first moments of a nightmare. After Midnight is a masterpiece that deserves to be read and remembered anew"--