Description
Book SynopsisComing back was worse, much worse, than Martin Stone had anticipated. Martin Stone returns to the city from which his family was driven in 1938. He has concealed his destination from his father, and hopes to win some form of restitution for the depressed old man living in exile in London. THE LOST EUROPEANS portrays a tense, ruined yet flourishing Berlin where nothing is quite what it seems.
Trade ReviewOne of the best unsung novelists of our time -- Valentine Cunningham
The great forgotten novel of post-war Berlin... both moving and forensic in its portrayal of a shabby and still only partly repaired city: recently divided between East and West but united by a common past of such monstrosity that the most prosaic presences and encounters shriek of murder' -- Patrick Wright
Litvinoff’s novel is as much about place as people, and he excels with his portrait of post war, pre-Wall Berlin... We accompany them through a city of victims and survivors, perpetrators and ghosts – all the time wondering why so fine a book could languish so long in obscurity. Now this overlooked gem can sparkle again' * Herald *
A real treat... This is still some achievement and has been the book I have enjoyed most to date in Apollo's surprisingly wide-ranging series of eight of "the best books you've never read"' * Nudge Book *
Litvinoff is a wonderful chronicler of city life... he conjures up post-war Berlin down to the very smells... Full of heart and sensitivity... it is a compelling investigation into guilt and complicity' * TLS *
A heady evocation of a city in moral stasis... Litvinoff is excellent on describing the dichotomy between Berlin's sullen monochrome East and devil-may-care West, but it is with his intriguing melee of heroes, vagabonds and miscreants that he brings post-War Berlin dizzyingly to life' * BookWitty *
