The Berlin Stories

by Christopher Isherwood · first published 1945

The Berlin Stories is a 1945 omnibus by English-American writer Christopher Isherwood, consisting of his two earlier novels Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939). Set in Jazz Age Berlin between 1930 and 1933 on the cusp of Adolf Hitler's ascent to power as Chancellor of Germany, Isherwood portrays the city during this chaotic interwar period as a carnival of debauchery and despair inhabited by desperate people who are unaware of the national catastrophe that awaits them. The first novel, Mr Norris Changes Trains, focuses on the misadventures of a smuggler, communist, and spy named Arthur Norris, a character based on Gerald Hamilton, an unscrupulous businessman known as "the wickedest man in Europe," whom Isherwood met in the Weimar Republic. The second novel, Goodbye to Berlin, recounts the travails of various Berlin denizens whose lives become directly or indirectly affected by the Nazis' rise to power.

Summary: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Original language:

English

Year page:

1945