Books by Joseph Roth

Book SynopsisGrandfather, son and grandson are equally dependent on the empire: the first for his enoblement; the second for the civil virtues that make him a meticulous servant of an administration whose failure he can neither comprehend nor survive; the third for the family standards of conduct which he cannot attain but against which he is unable to rebel.Trade ReviewRoth is Austria's Chekhov -- William BoydOne of the greatest novels written in the last century -- Allan MassieOne of the most readable, poignant, and superb novels in twentieth-century German: it stands with the best of Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, and Robert Musil. Roth was a cultural monument of Galician Jewry: ironic, compassionate, perfectly pitched to his catastrophic era -- Harold BloomA masterpiece . . . The totality of Joseph Roth's work is no less than a tragédie humaine achieved in the techniques of modern fiction -- Nadine GordimerThe best novel is a book that, to my shame, I have only just read. Visiting Vienna earlier in the year, I realised how little I knew about the Austro-Hungarian empire. So I read Joseph Roth's 1932 book The Radetzky March (Penguin Classics) and, as soon as I finished reading it, I read it all over again. -- Chris Patten * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisIn The Spider's Web, his first novel, Roth paints a chillingly realistic picture of the conspiracies of the radical right that were to undermine the Weimar Republic and pave the way for Hitler and National Socialism.Trade ReviewJoseph Roth is one of those rare and welcome talents whose concision and deceptive simplicity send the cogs of the imagination whizzing into overdrive * Sunday Telegraph *The true reading pleasure afforded by the rich environment Roth captures may well have increase over time, while the schisms at the heart of Europe continue to fascinate. It seems that we are rediscovering in twentieth-century Central European literature classics for a new millennium * Time Out *Reading [Roth] is like reading a prophet: provocative, discomforting, full of insight and foreboding * Tribune *

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Book Synopsis'One of the greatest European novelists of the century' Sunday Times Andreas is an alcoholic and a vagrant who lives under a bridge. Downtrodden, submerged at the bottom of society, he lives a fortuitous life - dictated by happenstance and the whims of others - until a run of exceptionally good luck lifts him, briefly, onto a different plane of existence. First published after Roth's death in 1939, The Legend of the Holy Drinker is haunting and melancholic, yet filled with empathy. A secular miracle-tale, it is an unforgettable testament to Roth's lucidity and compassion.Trade ReviewA short, boozy, perfectly cut gem of a story... Translated and introduced by that legend of a holy writer Michael Hofmann, it's funny and remarkable -- Stuart Hammond * Dazed and Confused *The Legend of the Holy Drinker is a tale of patience rewarded... a dreamy Parisian Catholic setting, destitution softened by fairy tale * Times Literary Supplement *Poignant -- Val Hennessy * Daily Mail *This is a little book of sublime simplicity... magically told * Daily Express *One of the greatest European novelists of the century * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisThe classic portrait of a vanished people.

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Book SynopsisThe only edition in print of the classic book at the center of Hugo Hamilton's highly anticipated novel, The Pages: Joseph Roth's 1924 tale of a one-legged street musician defying his fate in postwar Vienna.Andreas Pum, having lost his leg in World War I, is rewarded with a medal and a permit to support himself by playing a barrel organ in the streets of Vienna. At first the simpleminded veteran is entirely satisfied with his lot, and he even finds a voluptuous widow to marry. But then a public quarrel with a respectable citizen on a tram propels Andreas’s life into a rapid downward trajectory. As he loses his beggar’s permit, his new wife, and even his freedom, he is provoked into finally rejecting his blind faith in the benevolence of the powers that govern his life. Joseph Roth’s remarkable novel deploys the haunting atmosphere and propulsive power of a dream to convey the bewilderment of an ordinary man as his world falls apart around him.

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Book SynopsisBy one of the most distinguished Austrian writers of our century, a portrait of three generations set against the panoramic background of the declining Austro-Hungarian Empire. Translated by a three-time winner of the PEN Translation Prize.

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Book SynopsisThe first overview of all Joseph Roth’s journalism: traveling across a Europe in crisis, he declares,“I am a hotel citizen, a hotel patriot.”Trade Review"This wonderful selection of journalism from the Weimar years, a period Roth spent in Paris, Germany and on the road, displays genius from every angle, as a rebel, a loyalist and a man of compassion." -- Jan Morris - Daily Telegraph"Roth's journalism creates a vivid sense of a continent on the brink of change." -- Independent on Sunday"Nonstop brilliance, irresistible charm and continuing relevance." -- Jeffrey Eugenides - New York Times Book Review"Joseph Roth has emerged as one of the greatest, certainly the most prescient, of the German writers of the entre-deux guerres'." -- TLS"Joseph Roth: his view arises from the deepest human pity everywhere. I cannot imagine how he does this except instinctively. He is incomparable." -- Anne Carson"I love going back to Joseph Roth. He's one of the best journalists who ever lived and certainly an amazing writer and novelist. His book called The Hotel Years are articles he wrote about staying in hotels, mostly in eastern Europe as it then was in the last days of the Austrian Habsburg Empire. I love his style of observation and his descriptions of characters and so on. I always feel enriched when I put down a book by Joseph Roth." -- John le Carré"Roth captures and encapsulates Europe in those uncertain hours before the upheaval of a continent and the annihilation of a civilization." -- Cynthia Ozick"A singular achievement of both journalism and literature." -- Thane Rosenbaum - The Washington Post Book World"His was a voice of uncowed conscience and irrepressible humanism, his body of work a damning j’accuse against the folly of the age. The dispatches in The Hotel Years constitute a compelling vindication of his claims for the feuilleton’s literary possibilities." -- Houman Barekat - Los Angeles Review of Books"So consistently incisive that we devour the lot, compulsively, from cover to cover." -- Amanda Hopkinson - The Independent"Roth was as equally magisterial and entertaining in his journalism as he was in his novels, and Michael Hofmann’s new selection of Roth’s nonfiction, his fourteenth translation of Roth’s overall, is thoroughly addictive." -- André Naffis-Sahely - Paris Review"Dazzling, elegiac, mordant and harrowingly oracular by turn." -- George Prochnik - New York Times Book Review"The Hotel Years is a master class in journalism, and a reminder that when a writer can play multiple small notes, he creates a full composition that carries the depth of meaning." -- Juan Vidal - NPR Books"Roth’s hotel years came to an abrupt end in the Old World. Thankfully, his account of them, and of the turbulent cross-currents of his age, live on in exquisite collections such as this one." -- Malcolm Forbes - The American Interest"Brilliantly perceptive, beautifully crafted and often dripping with mordant wit." -- Toby Lichtig - The Wall Street Journal

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Book SynopsisNow in paperback, Napoleon’s return to the throne in Paris, as imagined by the incomparable Joseph RothTrade Review"An achingly beautiful fictional account of the rise and fall of the Emperor Napoleon." -- Abby Margulies - Words Without Borders"There is a poem on every page of Joseph Roth." -- Joseph Brodsky"What a marvelous writer! Read him now. You can thank me later." -- Michael Dirda"A novel of great sensitivity and resonance. The Hundred Days is a meditation on the nature of greatness and love’s dogged loyalty, interwoven with the well-balanced irony that is Roth’s trademark. It’s a sad little gem." -- Boston Review

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Book SynopsisIn January 1933, on the very day Hitler seized power in Germany, Joseph Roth fled to Paris. There, in what he called the 'hour before the end of the world', he wrote a series of articles. The end he foresaw would soon come to pass in the full horror of Hitler's barbarism, the Second World War and most crucially for Roth, the final irreversible destruction of a pan-European consciousness. Incisive and ironic, the writing evokes Roth's bitterness, frustration and morbid despair at the coming annihilation of the free world while displaying his great nostalgia for the Habsburg Empire into which he was born and his ingrained fear of nationalism in any form.Trade Review"Will Stone’s translation of Roth’s writings of the 1930s, On the End of the World . . . is a radiant book." — Morten Høi Jensen at LitHub"Roth is Austria's Chekhov." -- William Boyd

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Book SynopsisJoseph Roth's sensibility-both clear-eyed and nostalgic, harshly realistic and tenderly humane-produced some of the most distinctive fiction of the twentieth century. This collection of his most essential stories, in exquisite new translations by Ruth Martin, showcases the astonishing range and power of his short stories and novellas. In prose of aching beauty and precision, Roth shows us isolated souls pursuing lost ideals and impossible desires. Forced to remove a bust of the fallen Austrian emperor from his house, an eccentric old count holds a funeral for it and intends to be buried in the same plot himself; a humble coral merchant, dissatisfied with his life and longing for the sea, chooses to adulterate his wares with false coral, with catastrophic results; young Fini, just entering the haze of early sexuality, falls into an unsatisfying relationship with an older musician. With the greatest craft and sensitivity, Roth unfolds the many fragilities of the human heart.Trade Review‘One of the greatest writers of the first half of the tormented 20th century’ — Simon Schama, Financial Times 'Roth is Austria's Chekhov'--William Boyd 'Joseph Roth is counted among the great novelists of the twentieth century'--TLS‘What Roth sees and hands on is a unique essence, conveying the fragility of what is truly human in us, the ridiculous and the tragic' — Nadine Gordimer

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Book Synopsis'One of the greatest novels ever written' Philippe Sands Roth's masterpiece: an epic, moving account of the final days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, told through the fortunes of one family. Set against the doomed splendour of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Radetzky March tells the story of the celebrated Trotta family, tracing their rise and fall over three generations. Theirs is a sweeping history of heroism and duty, desire and compromise, tragedy and heartbreak, a story that lasts until the darkening eve of World War One, when all is set to fall apart. Rich, epic and profoundly moving, The Radetzky March is Joseph Roth's timeless masterpiece. 'For sheer, epic sweep, I love reading The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth, set in imperial Vienna. I can't recommend it highly enough' Jeremy Paxman 'Timeless... I re-read this book every two or three years, captivated anew by its low-key melancholia and its wry take on the human predicament' William Boyd, Mail on Sunday 'He saw, he listened, he understood. The Radetzky March is a dark, disturbing novel of eccentric beauty... If you have yet to experience Roth, begin here, and then read everything' Irish TimesTrade ReviewOne of the greatest novels ever written, Joseph Roth tells us who we are, and what we might yet become. Timeless, humane, tragic -- Philippe SandsFor sheer, epic sweep, I love reading The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth, set in imperial Vienna. I can't recommend it highly enough -- Jeremy PaxmanTimeless... I re-read this book every two or three years, captivated anew by its low-key melancholia and its wry take on the human predicament -- William Boyd * Mail on Sunday *He saw, he listened, he understood. The Radetzky March is a dark, disturbing novel of eccentric beauty... If you have yet to experience Roth, begin here, and then read everything * Irish Times *Roth weds epic sweep and scope to irony, pathos and keen wit, sustained across glorious set-pieces... Michael Hofmann's dazzling translations have secured a place for Roth, that peerless celebrant and satirist of the dying Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the affections of an army of Anglophone readers -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *A heartfelt evocation of an Empire in which he discernedvirtues that outweighed all the burdens of a mindless officialdom... Roth's masterpiece is of such enormous relevance to our times that we must be grateful that it has found in Michael Hofmann, a translator who does justice to its understated grief * The Times *One of the great novels of the last century. Its theme, beautifully articulated, is the end of an era. Roth's anthem for a vanished world has the intense, fleeting beauty of a sunset * Sunday Telegraph *Michael Hofmann has rendered us a service by bringing us a fresh and lively translation of a 20th Century masterpiece * Telegraph *Over recent years, the poet Michael Hofmann's glittering translations of Joseph Roth have single-handedly given a vanished voice fresh resonance in the English-speaking world. Now Hofmann has surpassed himself with the jewel in Roth's crown. The Radetzky March [is] a majestically assured and engaging novel. * Independent *A great, wise, droll, novel -- William Boyd * The Week *Remarkable... Elegantly told and rich in social history * London Magazine *

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Book Synopsis'A hugely significant and wonderfully haunting collection' William Boyd In the 1920s and 1930s, Joseph Roth travelled extensively in Europe, living in hotels and writing about the towns through which he passed and the people he encountered. Collected in one volume, his experiences in Italy, Germany, Russia, Albania and Ukraine form a series of tender vignettes that capture life in the inter-war years. Evocative, curious and sharply observed, these literary postcards document a continent clinging to tradition while on the brink of further upheaval.Trade ReviewA hugely significant and wonderfully haunting collection of Joseph Roth's journalism from the 1920s and '30s. Superbly translated by Michael Hofmann -- William BoydThis wonderful selection of journalism from the Weimar years, a period Roth spent in Paris, Germany and on the road, displays his genius from every angle, as a rebel, a loyalist and a man of compassion. It has been translated by Michael Hofmann, whose ear seems so faultless that you feel in reading his work that you have not been reading a translation at all -- Jan Morris * Daily Telegraph ***** *Thanks to the expert translations of Michael Hofmann, Roth is on track to canonical status... The writing is so consistently incisive that we devour the lot, compulsively, from cover to cover. Roth's philosophical eye universalises minor incidents with aphorisms worthy of Marcus Aurelius -- Amanda Hopkinson * Independent *There are so many fantastic scenes, indelible characters and exquisite lines to marvel at... Dazzling, elegiac, mordant and harrowingly oracular -- George Prochnik * New York International Times *This collection of [Roth's] journalism creates a vivid sense of a continent on the brink of change -- Lucy Popescu * Independent on Sunday *As good as any book in the series [of Hofmann's translations] and, at certain unheralded moments, better -- James Buchan * The Oldie *Atmospheric... dark and funny * National Geographic Traveller *[Roth's] style is quick, dashed with colour and rendered vivid in English by Michael Hofmann... In an explicit labour of love, the distinguished translator draws his favourite bits of Rothania into a multi-hued frescos of a raucous time and place... A new classic -- Stoddard Martin * Jewish Chronicle *Dazzling... An exquisite time capsule -- Robert Bound * Monocle *Poet Michael Hofmann most brilliantly conveys the fury that makes Roth special * Irish Times *Each of the [collection] is an evocative vignette of a bygone era... The Hotel Years is an instant classic -- Lucy Scholes, Paperback of the Week * Observer *Wonderful... displays [Roth's] genius from every angle * Daily Telegraph *Of ineffable worth [these stories] offer us beautifully drawn portraits of the lost world of Mitel-Europa, complete with long train journeys, animated boulevard cafes, grand hotels and a seemingly stylish life lived out of two suitcases in the 1920s and 1930s... [Roth's] stories are bathed with alarming foreknowledge of the new emerging forms of power, yet have no political axe to grind. They are elegiac, dazzling and prescient -- Barnaby Rogerson * Country Life *It seems perhaps a little trite to parrot Roth's assertion that his journalism has given us a portrait of an age - but it is only trite because it is true. With The Hotel Years, Roth has done far more than just give us the portrait of just his age, however, he has also given us a portrait of our own. Reading The Hotel Years is like staring into a mirror - the same anxieties, the same hatreds, the same longings, the same forces at play... Strikingly, Roth's pieces frequently display a Kafka-like suspension of the rules of our world -- Josh Romm * Forward *

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Book SynopsisIn 1920, Joseph Roth, the most renowned German correspondent of his age, arrived in Berlin, the capital of the Weimar Republic. He produced a series of impressionistic and political writings that influenced an entire generation of writers, including Thomas Mann and the young Christopher Isherwood. Roth, like no other German writer of his time, ventured beyond Berlin's official veneer to the heart of the city, chronicling the lives of its forgotten inhabitants - the Jewish immigrants, the criminals, the bathhouse denizens, and the nameless dead who filled the morgues. Warning early on of the threat posed by the Nazis, Roth evoked a landscape of moral bankruptcy and debauched beauty, creating in the process an unforgettable portrait of a city.Trade ReviewThe value of these feuilletons has nothing to do with typographical perspective, only with their non-stop brilliance, irresistible charm and continuing relevance -- Jeffrey Eugenides * New York Times *This is a marvellous book, and a welcome addition to the ever-growing canon of Roth's work in English. It offers proof, if proof were needed, that he is as brilliant and original a journalist as he is a storyteller, casting his eye and cocking his ear where lesser writers never venture -- Paul Bailey * Sunday Times *Keen-eyed and inquisitive... [Roth's] reports form Weimar-era Berlin capture in diamond-glitter prose the booming, brash capital -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *An instant classic -- Roy Foster * Financial Times *A splendid and necessary book -- Nicholas LezardA supreme observer, a cynical romantic with a flair for prophecy and an understanding of the slow fester of moral outrage... Outstanding * Irish Times *Thrilling... [Roth's] slivers of Berlin life during the Weimar Republic catch a city juddering with a sense of its own modernity, even as he listens for sighs escaping through the cracks * Observer *It is the eye for the telling detail that ends up astonishing us the most...a splendid and necessary book * Guardian *This dazzling selection of his eye-witness accounts of the chaos, sleazy defiance and despair that summed up the short-lived Weimar Republic shimmers with lyric irony and rage * Irish Times *Often abstract and sometimes melancholy, this book chronicles Berlin's diastolic years: the relaxed hedonistic interval between the blood-pounding systoles of two world wars... [Roth] captures atmosphere as precious few modern journalists can * Independent on Sunday *Roth was the poet of Berlin streetlife in the 1920s. It gives some idea of the sophistication of Weimar culture that these philosophical, challenging and often fantastical pieces of writing by Roth (wonderfully translated by the poet Michael Hofmann) were originally newspaper columns * Evening Standard *Roth writes as if Walter Benjamin had teamed up with Monsieur Hulot. He understands how perspective and value vanish in the modern city * Guardian *Superbly written, each compacted scene revealing some fresh angle on modern life as it was emerging in the chaos of Weimar Germany...On almost every page there is a sentence you want to read aloud to someone * New Statesman *What I Saw collects the best of Roth's journalism, where 'reportage' is a dream union of theory and poetry, somewhere between the insights of Walter Benjamin and Maeve Brennan's New Yorker essays * Time Out *[The] attraction is part curiosity, part genuine historical interest, a delight in the turn of phrase of a major novelist and the glimpses of decay and of disillusion which would contribute to the fall of the Weimar Republic... Read this book, but let it be the bridge to the novels of a fine and neglected writer * Morning Star *At times his sentences are perfect, near poetry in syntax and diction...poignant and prescient * Kirkus Reviews *Roth brings alive the sights, sounds and smells of Berlin with the deftest touch of his pen... A master of compression, as of compassion... This book is a treat * Literary Review *It seems Roth foresaw it all. Disturbing to the point of mesmerism in its power of observation, this is one of the most valuable collections of writing Granta has ever published * Good Book Guide *Roth offers fascinating and idiosyncratic glimpses of a new urban modernity. Translator Michael Hofmann and publisher Granta have rescued Roth from obscurity by dusting down and translating a string of his novels as well as these striking essays...with the journalism they have struck gold * Tribune *

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Book Synopsis'Many years ago there lived in Zuchnow, in Russia, a man named Mendel Signer. He was pious, God-fearing and ordinary, an entirely commonplace Jew...' So Roth begins his novel about the loss of faith and the experience of suffering. His modern Job goes through his trials in the ghettos of Tsarist Russia and on the unforgiving streets of New York. Mendel Singer loses his family, falls terribly ill and is badly abused. He needs a miracle...Trade ReviewExtraordinary... A powerful work by a titan of early 20th-century literature -- Alistair Mabbott * Herald *[A] tender fable.... Dorothy Thompson's translation is enthralling -- Max Lui * Independent *One of the great European novelists of the century * Sunday Times *Roth... can pack more into a few pages than lesser writers can do in a few hundred. But his lightness of touch has a deceptive historical weight * Times Literary Supplement *Roth is one of those rare and welcome talents whose concision and deceptive simplicity send the cogs of the imagination whizzing into overdrive * Sunday Telegraph *Enthralling... Roth's most perfect book * Independent *One of the great writers of the century * The Times *'It is not possible to do justice to Job's poetic subtlety, but I can vouch for its extraordinary merits * Thomas Mann *Roth's philosophical acuity is matched by his deep compassion for the frailty of the human condition * Sunday Times *There are some books that seem sacrosanct and one of them is Job * Independent *Roth, above all, is a consistently magnificent writer of prose * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThe Emperor's Tomb is a magically evocative, haunting elegy to the vanished world of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and to the passing of time and the loss of youth and friends. Prophetic and regretful, intuitive and exact, Roth's acclaimed novel is the tale of one man's struggle to come to terms with the uncongenial society of post-First World War Vienna and the first intimations of Nazi barbarities.Trade ReviewAn urgent and deceptively moving lamentation of stark emotion... A profound farewell gesture of love and sorrow, such heartbreaking sorrow * Irish Times *Roth is a master of sharp scene-shaping and storytelling... wonderful -- A.S. Byatt * Guardian *Superbly translated by the poet Michael Hofmann... Roth remains one of the greatest literary geniuses of the 20th century -- Ian Thomson * Evening Standard *Vividly written... No-one handles the passing of time, and the regrets this brings, better than Roth -- Allan Massie * Scotsman *Breathtaking... In despair, battling with poverty and illness, he nevertheless manages to create one astonishing scene after another -- David Herman * Jewish Chronicle *The carefully wrought work of a poet in full sympathy with his subject and his subject matter, in all its rootlessness, melancholy and ironic brevity * Economist *This lament has all the more power for knowing it was written as Europe was about to fall once more -- Ben Felsenburg * Metro *Events unfurl amid the morbid carnival of ever more grotesque political mutations, preceding the Anschluss in 1938... courageous, irrepressible [and] resplendent -- Will Stone * TLS *A new translation by the peerless Michael Hofmann, this is the troubled, troubling account of a young man struggling to fit into Vienna in the wake of the First World War, a time when the Nazis' behaviour was slowly becoming evident * Sunday Herald *Remarkable -- Alan Taylor * The Herald *Here is a rare opportunity for English-speaking readers to better understand [the] fate [of the Austro-Hungarian Empire]... Worth reading -- Stefan Wagstyl * Financial Times *A resourceful translation -- Anthony Cummins * Observer *Roth is able to contain moral universes within the tiniest of narrative spans, and to convey almost unbearable purity in the plainest terms * Scotland on Sunday *His books posses an eerie clairvoyant feel, shattering in their simplicity, exalting in their moral philosophical weight * Los Angeles Times *Luminous * Elle Decoration *Fractured and melancholic... more an extended prose poem than a novel -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *Roth wrote of the most serious things with the lightest of touches -- Howard Jacobsen, Summer books round up 2016 * Sunday Times *Beautiful, elegant, almost dreamlike * The Times *Unforgettable, really great literature -- William BoydLean, choppy. ... Pauperized and debilitated in exile, Roth was at his lowest ebb by 1939, but, in that courageous and irrepressible vein which marks the resplendent prose of The Emperor's Tomb, he still ends on a high * TLS *

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Book Synopsis'A masterly performance' Evening StandardJoseph Roth's dark fable about a man torn between resolve and restlessness in Eastern Europe's borderlandsIn the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Anselm Eibenschütz is appointed inspector of weights and measures in a remote border town. There he encounters a shadowy world of gamblers and smugglers - and discovers his wife is pregnant by another man. Right and wrong prove hard to judge, as Eibenschütz is drawn into a destructive affair of his own. In this late masterpiece, Joseph Roth depicts the slow corruption of a decent man at the lawless edge of a crumbling world.Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.Translated by David Le Vay.JOSEPH ROTH (1894-1939) was born into a Jewish family in the small town of Brody in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied first in Lemberg

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Book SynopsisFlight Without End tells the story of Franz Tunda, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, who is captured by the Russians in WWI and escapes to a remote Siberian farm.

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Book SynopsisAt the end of the Great War, Andreas Pum has lost a leg but at least he has a medal and a barrel-organ which he plays on the streets of Vienna. At first the simple-minded veteran is satisfied with his lot, and he even finds an ample widow to marry. But then a public quarrel with a respectable citizen on a tram turns Andreas's life onto a rapid downward trajectory. As he loses first his beggar's permit, then his new wife, and even his freedom, he is finally provoked into rejecting his blind faith in the benevolence of both government and God.

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Book SynopsisThe legendary Austro-Hungarian novelist and essayist, Joseph Roth, was born in Ukraine in 1894 and died tragically in Paris in 1939. These letters span the breadth of Roth's life, from the schoolboy to the veteran of 44, marked by war, poverty, alcoholism, the loss of his wife through madness, and two decades of prolific work. It is a deeply moving portrait of the life of the writer as an outsider, in exile from a world he no longer recognized as his own.

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Book SynopsisTHE RADETSKY MARCH is subtle and touching study of family life at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Writing in the traditional form of the family saga, Roth nevertheless manages to bring to his story a completely individual manner which gives at the same time the detailed and intimate portrait of a life and the wider panorama of a failing dynasty. Not yet well known in English-speaking countries, Joseph Roth is one of the most distinguished Austrian writers of our century, worthy to be bracketed with Musil and Kraus.

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Book SynopsisThis is the first English translation of Joseph Roth's portrayal of the Jews of Eastern Europe: their poverty, their towns and trades, their feast days and the mysticism of their rabbis. Roth was conscious that this was a community living under the threat of extermination.Trade ReviewThis [is a] rich little book ... Roth's gift of phrasing, which can switch without warning from lyrical sentiment to irony, never deserts him * Observer *Almost every page has flashes of the novelist's descriptive wit and the trained journalist's eye for a story * Sunday Telegraph *It shows some prophetic insights, and some illusions * Evening Standard *The Wandering Jews reconnects with the rich complexities of European Jewish culture before it was swallowed up by the Holocaust. Roth's brilliant and penetrating analysis proved tragically prophetic. At this distance, it gives a timeless perspective on the vulnerability of dispossessed people everywhere * The Times *Of the many books written about the Jewish people few have approached the clarity and exactness achieved in this short, astonishing study. Roth's reportage remains vivid and pertinent. As a cultural study of a homeless, persecuted race it is as perceptive as it is practical. His lightness of touch always prevails. Above all the fiction is unforgettable, the prose fluid and beautiful. It must also be said he is a forgotten master - the fiction is evocative, atmospheric and accessible. Read everything he has written - and wonder at one of literature's most enduring, beguiling and deserving voices -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *Roth ... is one of the greatest. Why he was forgotten, I have no idea ... In The Wandering Jews, a book dozens of times larger than itself in love and argument and stern sympathy ... [Roth] also demonstrates that war is not necessary to break our faith. Only civilisation is. Only a writer who had chosen to live with that sound of shattering could do that * New Statesman *This new book contains superb reportage * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisSet in the early days of the Russian Revolution, Tarabas tells the story of Nicholas Tarabas, a young revolutionary, shamefully dispatched from St Petersburg to New York by his outraged family. During a visit to Coney Island's amusement park, the deeply superstitious Tarabas learns from a gypsy that it is his destiny to be both a murderer and a saint and, following a fight with a local cafe owner, he flees back to Russia as war with Austria is declared. Following his rapid promotion to captain, Tarabas gains a fearful reputation among his soldiers and the local villagers, until a miraculous discovery unleashes a chain of events that see him undergo a final, dramatic transformation. It is Roth's special gift that, in Tarabas's fulfilling of his tragic destiny, the larger movements of history find their perfect expression in the fate of one man.

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Book SynopsisSet in Vienna in the early part of the twentieth century, Zipper and His Father is a compelling and wonderfully atmospheric portrayal of a childhood friend, Arnold Zipper, and his father, as seen through the eyes of a young boy. The Zipper family welcome the arrival of their son's friend and the boy is fascinated by their cosy suburban life. Zipper Senior, a violin-maker and travelling salesman, is determined that the boys will attain the success that was denied to him. However, as the two friends mature their lives take different paths - the army, university, early career choices and a disastrous marriage to an aspiring actress all take their toll - and each has a very different story to tell. From the outskirts of Vienna to the Hollywood Hills, Zipper and His Father charts the ambitions of a whole generation who, during period of erratic social change, found themselves dreaming of what might have been.

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