When Keith Stapperpfennig and his family give their grandfather the trip of a lifetime – an all expenses paid holiday to any destination in the world – the eccentric old man arbitrarily chooses China, and he asks Keith to accompany him. But when Keit...

The day is Friday, May 22, 2032. On this day, the day after his ninety-fourth birthday, a man is sitting in a beautiful garden. It is a paradise where he often played during his childhood, and it is here that he is recording the story of his adventur...

Although Theodor W. Adorno is best known for his association with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, he began his career as a composer and successful music critic. "Night Music" presents the first complete English translations of two collection...

Western culture has been marked by deep divisions between action and contemplation, intervention and passivity, and decisiveness and withdrawal. Conceived as radical opposites, these terms structure the history of religion, philosophy, and political...

"Rubble Flora" is a selection of poems from the distinguished, half-century-long career of German poet Volker Braun. Born in the former East Germany, Braun is a humane, witty, brave, and disappointed poet. In the East, his poetry upheld the voice of...

Friedrich Durrenmatt was one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century, a talent on par with Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Bertolt Brecht. A prolific writer of letters, poems, novels, and shorter fictions,...

"The Silences of Hammerstein", the latest work from one of Germany's most significant contemporary authors, engages readers with a blend of a documentary, collage, narration, and fictional interviews. The gripping plot revolves around the experiences...

Despite being widely acknowledged as one of the most important German dramatists since Bertolt Brecht, Heiner Muller (1929-1995) still remains relatively unknown in the English-speaking world. This collection of plays aims to change that, presenting...

Part "Odyssey" of the Persian Gulf and part "1001 Nights" in Europe, this debut novel is drawn from the author's experiences as a political prisoner and years as a refugee. Our hero Rasul Hamid describes the eight different ways that he fled his home...

Martin Mosebach's novel "What Was Before" opens with a young couple enjoying a moment of carefree intimacy. Then the young woman, turning slightly more serious, asks her lover that fateful question, one that sounds so innocent but carries toxic seeds...