Hans Fallada was a drug addict, womanizer, alcoholic, jailbird and thief. Yet he was also one of the most extraordinary storytellers of the twentieth century, whose novels, including Alone in Berlin, portrayed ordinary people in terrible times with a powerful humanity. This acclaimed biography, newly revised and completely updated, tells the remarkable story of Hans Fallada, whose real name was Rudolf Ditzen. Jenny Williams chronicles his turbulent life as a writer, husband and father, shadowed by mental torment and long periods in psychiatric care. She shows how Ditzen's decision to remain in Nazi Germany in 1939 led to his self-destruction, but also made him a unique witness to his country's turmoil. More Lives Than One unpicks the contradictory, flawed and fascinating life of a writer who saw the worst of humanity, yet maintained his belief in the decency of the 'little man'.

"Based on a true story, this sweeping saga tells the tale of a working class couple in Berlin who decide to take a stand against the Nazis. More than an edge-of-your-seat thriller, more than a moving romance, even more than literature of the highest order, it's a deeply moving story of two people who stand up for what's right, and for each other. Hans Fallada wrote Every Man Dies Alone in a feverish twenty-four days, soon after the end of World War II and his release from a Nazi insane asylum. He did not live to see his its publication"--Page 4 of cover.

“I lived the same life as everyone else, the life of ordinary people, the masses.” Sitting in a prison cell in the autumn of 1944, the German author Hans Fallada sums up his life under the National Socialist dictatorship, the time of “inward emigration”. Under conditions of close confinement, in constant fear of discovery, he writes himself free from the nightmare of the Nazi years. He records his thoughts about spying and denunciation, about the threat to his livelihood and his literary work and about the fate of many friends and contemporaries. The confessional mode did not come naturally to Fallada, but in the mental and emotional distress of 1944, self-reflection became a survival strategy. Fallada’s frank and sometimes provocative memoirs were thought for many years to have been lost. They are published here for the first time.

Available for the first time in English, here is an unforgettable portrayal by a master novelist of the physical and psychological devastation wrought in the homeland by Hitler’s war. Late April, 1945. The war is over, yet Dr Doll, a loner and ‘moderate pessimist’, lives in constant fear. By night, he is haunted by nightmarish images of the bombsite in which he is trapped — he, and the rest of Germany. More than anything, he wishes to vanquish the demon of collective guilt, but he is unable to right any wrongs, especially in his position as mayor of a small town in north-east Germany that has been occupied by the Red Army. Dr Doll flees for Berlin, where he finds escape in a morphine addiction: each dose is a ‘small death’. He tries to make his way in the chaos of a city torn apart by war, accompanied by his young wife, who shares his addiction. Fighting to save two lives, he tentatively begins to believe in a better future. Written with Fallada’s distinctive power and vividness, Nightmare in Berlin captures the demoralised and desperate atmosphere of post-war Germany in a way that has never been matched or surpassed.

Written just before the Nazis came to power, this darkly enchanting novel tells the story of a young German couple trying to eke out a decent life amidst an economic crisis that is transforming their country into a place of anger and despair. Little Man, What Now? was an international bestseller upon its release, and was made into a Hollywood movie — by Jewish producers, which prompted the rising Nazis to begin paying ominously close attention to Hans Fallada, even as his novels held out stirring hope for the human spirit. It is presented here in its first-ever uncut translation, by Susan Bennett, and with an afterword by Philip Brady that details the calamitous background of the novel, its worldwide reception, and how it turned out to be, for the author, a dangerous book.

It is the summer of 1929, and in a small German town, a storm is brewing. Tredup, a shabby reporter working for the Pomeranian Chronicle, leads a precarious existence . . . until he takes some photographs that offer him a chance to make a fortune. While Tredup contemplates his next move, the town is buzzing. Farmers are plotting their revenge against greedy officials, a mysterious traveling salesman is stirring up trouble, and all the while, the Nazi party grows stronger as the Communists fight them in the street. As the town slowly slips into chaos, Mayor “Fatty” Gareis does everything in his power to seek the easy life. As tensions mount between workers and bosses, town and country, and Left and Right, alliances are broken, bribes are taken, and plots are hatched, until the tension spills over into violence. From the brilliant mind of one of Germany’s most celebrated writers, A Small Circus is a genuine and frightening tale of small-town Germany during a time of unrest. It belongs in the collection of every reader who has enjoyed his break-out classics. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

For Willi Kufult, prison life means staying out of trouble, keeping his cell clean, snagging a precious piece of tobacco, and dreaming of the day of his release. Then he gets out. As Willi tries to make a new life for himself in Hamburg, finding a job and even love, he still cannot escape his past. Gradually he becomes sucked into a world of drink, desperation, deceit, and, with one terrible act, he is ensnared in a noose of his own making . . . Hans Fallada, whose famous works include Alone in Berlin and The Drinker, brilliantly crafts this dark and moving novel, originally written in 1934, as he describes a seedy criminal underworld of shabby lives and violent deeds, showing how our actions always catch up with us. His work is unparalleled, and Once a Jailbird is a fantastic title to add to Fallada’s recently translated works. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.