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Wolf Among Wolves

Translated by Philip Owens
Look inside
Paperback
$18.95 US
5.5"W x 8.2"H x 1.5"D   (14.0 x 20.8 x 3.8 cm) | 22 oz (624 g) | 24 per carton
On sale May 25, 2010 | 816 Pages | 9781933633923
Sales rights: World except AU/NZ

Hailed as “Fallada’s best book” (The New Yorker), this sprawling post-WWI is a portrait of Berlin in a time of great upheaval—and of the common mans struggle to survive it all
 
Set in Weimar Germany soon after Germany’s catastrophic loss of World War I, the story follows a young gambler who loses everything in Berlin, then flees the chaotic city, where worthless money and shortages are causing pandemonium. Once in the countryside, however, he finds a defeated German army that has decamped there to foment insurrection. Somehow, amidst it all, he finds romance—it’s The Year of Living Dangerously in a European setting.

Fast-moving as a thriller, fascinating as the best historical fiction, and with lyrical prose that packs a powerful emotional punch, Wolf Among Wolves is the equal of Fallada’s acclaimed Every Man Dies Alone as an immensely absorbing work of important literature.

“An unmissably brilliant portrait of Berlin before the Nazis.” —The Times of London

“His most ambitious novel . . . deeply moving . . . [Fallada] has evoked more than one can bear, but not more than it is necessary to learn, to keep and to understand.”  
—Alfred Kazin, The New York Times (1938)
 
“The ideal summer read.” 
—Katherine Powers, The Boston Globe
 
“An unmissably brilliant portrait of Berlin before the Nazis.”
—The Times of London
 
“Outstanding . . . his novels, whatever their ultimate position in the literary rankings, are simply much more entertaining than the tomes produced by the usual German suspects, Mann, Hesse, Grass, Böll . . . if you fancy a book to take you right through your holidays and any possible delays at the airport, you couldn’t do better than Wolf Among Wolves.” 
—Tibor Fischer, Telegraph (UK)
 
“Out of the multitude of episodes and a large cast of characters, the picture of post-war Germany during the terror of the inflation period, comes into reality, as in almost no other book we have had . . . A human documentand a moving picture of a Germany gone mad.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Fallada handles [the characters] not morbidly but with a Hogarthian exuberance and a tough humor, infusing into even those dying spirits the life of his copious imagination . . . Fallada’s best book.”
The New Yorker (1938)
 
“What other living German novelist shares with Fallada the power to grip the reader on the first page and hold him unremittingly through 1100 more?” 
—Bayard Q. Morgan, World Literature Today (1938)

Praise for Hans Fallada:
“Fallada can be seen as a hero, a writer-hero who survived just long enough to strike back at his oppressors.” 
—Alan Furst
 
“Fallada deserves high praise for having reported realistically, so truthfully, with such closeness to life.”  
—Herman Hesse

© Hans Fallada
Before WWII , German writer Hans Fallada’s novels were international bestsellers, on a par with those of his countrymen Thomas Mann and Herman Hesse. In America, Hollywood even turned his first big novel, Little Man, What Now?, into a major motion picture.
 
Learning the movie was made by a Jewish producer, however, Hitler decreed Fallada’s work could no longer be sold outside Germany, and the rising Nazis began to pay him closer attention. When he refused to join the Nazi party he was arrested by the Gestapo—who eventually released him, but thereafter regularly summoned him for “discussions” of his work.
 
However, unlike Mann, Hesse, and others, Fallada refused to flee to safety, even when his British publisher, George Putnam, sent a private boat to rescue him. The pressure took its toll on Fallada, and he resorted increasingly to drugs and alcohol for relief. After Goebbels ordered him to write an anti-Semitic novel, he snapped and found himself imprisoned in an asylum for the “criminally insane”—considered a death sentence under Nazi rule. To forestall the inevitable, he pretended to write the assignment for Goebbels, while actually composing three encrypted books—including his tour-de-force novel The Drinker—in such dense code that they were not deciphered until long after his death.
 
Fallada outlasted the Reich and was freed at war’s end. But he was a shattered man. To help him recover by putting him to work, Fallada’s publisher gave him the Gestapo file of a simple, working-class couple who had resisted the Nazis. Inspired, Fallada completed Every Man Dies Alone in just twenty-four days.
 
He died on February 5, 1947, just weeks before the book’s publication. View titles by Hans Fallada
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•     Yemen
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Not available for sale:
•     Australia
•     New Zealand

About

Hailed as “Fallada’s best book” (The New Yorker), this sprawling post-WWI is a portrait of Berlin in a time of great upheaval—and of the common mans struggle to survive it all
 
Set in Weimar Germany soon after Germany’s catastrophic loss of World War I, the story follows a young gambler who loses everything in Berlin, then flees the chaotic city, where worthless money and shortages are causing pandemonium. Once in the countryside, however, he finds a defeated German army that has decamped there to foment insurrection. Somehow, amidst it all, he finds romance—it’s The Year of Living Dangerously in a European setting.

Fast-moving as a thriller, fascinating as the best historical fiction, and with lyrical prose that packs a powerful emotional punch, Wolf Among Wolves is the equal of Fallada’s acclaimed Every Man Dies Alone as an immensely absorbing work of important literature.

“An unmissably brilliant portrait of Berlin before the Nazis.” —The Times of London

Praise

“His most ambitious novel . . . deeply moving . . . [Fallada] has evoked more than one can bear, but not more than it is necessary to learn, to keep and to understand.”  
—Alfred Kazin, The New York Times (1938)
 
“The ideal summer read.” 
—Katherine Powers, The Boston Globe
 
“An unmissably brilliant portrait of Berlin before the Nazis.”
—The Times of London
 
“Outstanding . . . his novels, whatever their ultimate position in the literary rankings, are simply much more entertaining than the tomes produced by the usual German suspects, Mann, Hesse, Grass, Böll . . . if you fancy a book to take you right through your holidays and any possible delays at the airport, you couldn’t do better than Wolf Among Wolves.” 
—Tibor Fischer, Telegraph (UK)
 
“Out of the multitude of episodes and a large cast of characters, the picture of post-war Germany during the terror of the inflation period, comes into reality, as in almost no other book we have had . . . A human documentand a moving picture of a Germany gone mad.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Fallada handles [the characters] not morbidly but with a Hogarthian exuberance and a tough humor, infusing into even those dying spirits the life of his copious imagination . . . Fallada’s best book.”
The New Yorker (1938)
 
“What other living German novelist shares with Fallada the power to grip the reader on the first page and hold him unremittingly through 1100 more?” 
—Bayard Q. Morgan, World Literature Today (1938)

Praise for Hans Fallada:
“Fallada can be seen as a hero, a writer-hero who survived just long enough to strike back at his oppressors.” 
—Alan Furst
 
“Fallada deserves high praise for having reported realistically, so truthfully, with such closeness to life.”  
—Herman Hesse

Author

© Hans Fallada
Before WWII , German writer Hans Fallada’s novels were international bestsellers, on a par with those of his countrymen Thomas Mann and Herman Hesse. In America, Hollywood even turned his first big novel, Little Man, What Now?, into a major motion picture.
 
Learning the movie was made by a Jewish producer, however, Hitler decreed Fallada’s work could no longer be sold outside Germany, and the rising Nazis began to pay him closer attention. When he refused to join the Nazi party he was arrested by the Gestapo—who eventually released him, but thereafter regularly summoned him for “discussions” of his work.
 
However, unlike Mann, Hesse, and others, Fallada refused to flee to safety, even when his British publisher, George Putnam, sent a private boat to rescue him. The pressure took its toll on Fallada, and he resorted increasingly to drugs and alcohol for relief. After Goebbels ordered him to write an anti-Semitic novel, he snapped and found himself imprisoned in an asylum for the “criminally insane”—considered a death sentence under Nazi rule. To forestall the inevitable, he pretended to write the assignment for Goebbels, while actually composing three encrypted books—including his tour-de-force novel The Drinker—in such dense code that they were not deciphered until long after his death.
 
Fallada outlasted the Reich and was freed at war’s end. But he was a shattered man. To help him recover by putting him to work, Fallada’s publisher gave him the Gestapo file of a simple, working-class couple who had resisted the Nazis. Inspired, Fallada completed Every Man Dies Alone in just twenty-four days.
 
He died on February 5, 1947, just weeks before the book’s publication. View titles by Hans Fallada

Rights

Available for sale exclusive:
•     Afghanistan
•     Aland Islands
•     Albania
•     Algeria
•     Andorra
•     Angola
•     Anguilla
•     Antarctica
•     Antigua/Barbuda
•     Argentina
•     Armenia
•     Aruba
•     Austria
•     Azerbaijan
•     Bahamas
•     Bahrain
•     Bangladesh
•     Barbados
•     Belarus
•     Belgium
•     Belize
•     Benin
•     Bermuda
•     Bhutan
•     Bolivia
•     Bonaire, Saba
•     Bosnia Herzeg.
•     Botswana
•     Bouvet Island
•     Brazil
•     Brit.Ind.Oc.Ter
•     Brit.Virgin Is.
•     Brunei
•     Bulgaria
•     Burkina Faso
•     Burundi
•     Cambodia
•     Cameroon
•     Canada
•     Cape Verde
•     Cayman Islands
•     Centr.Afr.Rep.
•     Chad
•     Chile
•     China
•     Christmas Islnd
•     Cocos Islands
•     Colombia
•     Comoro Is.
•     Congo
•     Cook Islands
•     Costa Rica
•     Croatia
•     Cuba
•     Curacao
•     Cyprus
•     Czech Republic
•     Dem. Rep. Congo
•     Denmark
•     Djibouti
•     Dominica
•     Dominican Rep.
•     Ecuador
•     Egypt
•     El Salvador
•     Equatorial Gui.
•     Eritrea
•     Estonia
•     Ethiopia
•     Falkland Islnds
•     Faroe Islands
•     Fiji
•     Finland
•     France
•     Fren.Polynesia
•     French Guinea
•     Gabon
•     Gambia
•     Georgia
•     Germany
•     Ghana
•     Gibraltar
•     Greece
•     Greenland
•     Grenada
•     Guadeloupe
•     Guam
•     Guatemala
•     Guernsey
•     Guinea Republic
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•     Hong Kong
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•     Laos
•     Latvia
•     Lebanon
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•     Macedonia
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•     Maldives
•     Mali
•     Malta
•     Marshall island
•     Martinique
•     Mauritania
•     Mauritius
•     Mayotte
•     Mexico
•     Micronesia
•     Minor Outl.Ins.
•     Moldavia
•     Monaco
•     Mongolia
•     Montenegro
•     Montserrat
•     Morocco
•     Mozambique
•     Myanmar
•     Namibia
•     Nauru
•     Nepal
•     Netherlands
•     New Caledonia
•     Nicaragua
•     Niger
•     Nigeria
•     Niue
•     Norfolk Island
•     North Korea
•     North Mariana
•     Norway
•     Oman
•     Pakistan
•     Palau
•     Palestinian Ter
•     Panama
•     PapuaNewGuinea
•     Paraguay
•     Peru
•     Philippines
•     Pitcairn Islnds
•     Poland
•     Portugal
•     Puerto Rico
•     Qatar
•     Reunion Island
•     Romania
•     Russian Fed.
•     Rwanda
•     S. Sandwich Ins
•     Saint Martin
•     Samoa,American
•     San Marino
•     SaoTome Princip
•     Saudi Arabia
•     Senegal
•     Serbia
•     Seychelles
•     Sierra Leone
•     Singapore
•     Sint Maarten
•     Slovakia
•     Slovenia
•     Solomon Islands
•     Somalia
•     South Africa
•     South Korea
•     South Sudan
•     Spain
•     Sri Lanka
•     St Barthelemy
•     St. Helena
•     St. Lucia
•     St. Vincent
•     St.Chr.,Nevis
•     St.Pier,Miquel.
•     Sth Terr. Franc
•     Sudan
•     Suriname
•     Svalbard
•     Swaziland
•     Sweden
•     Switzerland
•     Syria
•     Tadschikistan
•     Taiwan
•     Tanzania
•     Thailand
•     Timor-Leste
•     Togo
•     Tokelau Islands
•     Tonga
•     Trinidad,Tobago
•     Tunisia
•     Turkey
•     Turkmenistan
•     Turks&Caicos Is
•     Tuvalu
•     US Virgin Is.
•     USA
•     Uganda
•     Ukraine
•     Unit.Arab Emir.
•     United Kingdom
•     Uruguay
•     Uzbekistan
•     Vanuatu
•     Vatican City
•     Venezuela
•     Vietnam
•     Wallis,Futuna
•     West Saharan
•     Western Samoa
•     Yemen
•     Zambia
•     Zimbabwe

Not available for sale:
•     Australia
•     New Zealand