{"product_id":"understanding-joseph-roth-9781643361260","title":"Understanding Joseph Roth","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA writer described as a \"\"Jew in search of a fatherland\"\" and a \"\"wanderer in flight toward a tragic end,\"\" the Austrian writer Joseph Roth (1894-1939) spent his life in pursuit of a national and cultural identity and his final years writing in fervent opposition to the Third Reich. In this introduction to Roth's novels, which include \u003ci\u003eJob\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Radetzky March,\u003c\/i\u003e Sidney Rosenfeld demonstrates how the experience of homelessness not only shaped Roth's life but also decisively defined his body of work. Rosenfeld suggests that more than any other component of Roth's varied fiction, his skillful portrayals of uprootedness and the search for home explain his international appeal, which has grown in recent decades with the translation of his works into English.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRosenfeld examines Roth's obsession with the question of belonging, tracing it to his boyhood in the Slavic-Jewish Austrian Crown land of Galicia. Illustrating how Roth's quest determined his most typical themes and gave rise to the Jewish-Slavic melancholy that permeates his narratives, Rosenfeld includes readings of the early novels. Through this fiction Roth quickly established his reputation as a literary chronicler of both the final years of the Habsburg monarchy and the lost world of East European Jewry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRosenfeld describes Roth's flight from Berlin upon Hitler's ascent to power in January 1933, and his precarious existence as an exile. While copies of Roth's works went up in flames in Nazi book burnings, the novelist moved from one European city to another, living in hotels and writing at cafe tables. From the time of his exile until his death in Paris just months before the outbreak of the Second World War, Roth produced six novels, as well as shorter works of fiction and a steady flow of journalism denouncing the Third Reich. Rosenfeld's critical readings of the novels written during Roth's exile connect them with the novelist's prescient estimate of Hitler's intentions and his own longing for a sovereign Austria.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThoughtful and carefully written … a useful, up-to-date guide to Roth Scholarship.\"—\u003ci\u003eGerman Studies Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Rosenfeld explores the causes of Roth's apartness and alienation from society, his feelings of nonidentity, and the inner conflicts that led to his premature death--and in the process, he brings the reader ever closer to this remarkable writer without a homeland.\"—\u003ci\u003eChoice Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Rosenfeld includes not only synopses of Roth's numerous works but also a valuable biographical list, a nearly exhaustive bibliography, and a brilliant epilogue dealing with the enigma of Roth's ambivalent attitude toward his Galician\/Jewish background and his patriotism-engendered attraction to Catholicism.\"—\u003ci\u003eWorld Literature Today\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"University of South Carolina Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51041911374167,"sku":"9781643361260","price":16.16,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781643361260.jpg?v=1750952175","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/understanding-joseph-roth-9781643361260","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}