Tales from the Underworld

Nov 20, 2024 12:21 AM

Author:Hans Fallada,Michael Hofmann,Michael Hofmann,Jenny Williams

Darkly funny, searingly honest short stories from Hans Fallada, author of bestselling Alone in Berlin

In these stories, criminals lament how hard it is to scrape a living by breaking and entering; families measure their daily struggles in marks and pfennigs; a convict makes a desperate leap from a moving train; a ring - and with it a marriage - is lost in a basket of potatoes.

Here, as in his novels, Fallada is by turns tough, darkly funny, streetwise and effortlessly engaging, writing with acute feeling about ordinary lives shaped by forces larger than themselves: addiction, love, money.

Reviews

A powerful chronicler of human weakness shot through with hope

—— Times Literary Supplement

Contemporary fairy tales … and a deep tenderness for her characters, that aren’t always as dark or as sinister as they initially appear.

—— The New York Times Book Review

To curl up with an Aimee Bender story is to thank heaven you ever learned to read in the first place.

—— Entertainment Weekly

New, exciting, harsh, rugged and unyielding … Every sentence … is a fresh surprise.

—— The Washington Post

[Bender] is Hemingway on an acid trip; her choices are twisted, both ethereal and surprisingly weighty … Terrifyingly lovely.

—— Los Angeles Times

Her imagination packs all the gleaming surreality of a Magritte painting, her wry tone the poker-faced irony of a Haruki Murakami novel, her furious satire the bite of a Lynda Barry cartoon. The stories in Willful Creatures delight even as they unsettle.

—— Time Out New York

The ingenious and original master of the short story overflows with absurdity, humour, longing and compassion... Keret's most mature and most playful work yet, and establises him as one of the great international writers of our time

—— GQ

Distinctive, surreal and intelligent

—— Antonia Charlesworth , Big Issue in the North

Sublimely irresistible

—— Tim Samuels , theholbornmag.com

Previous Article：From Scotland With Love (Short Story) Next Article：Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes

Comments

Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.