A Small Circus
  • Published: 22 February 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141968100
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 608

A Small Circus

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EBook
22 Feb 2012
Paperback
22 May 2013
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A powerful 1931 portrayal of a German town on the brink of chaos, from bestselling author Hans Fallada

It is summer, 1929, and in a small German town a storm is brewing. The shabby reporter Tredup leads a precarious existence working for the Pomeranian Chronicle - until he takes some photographs that offer the chance to make a fortune. In Krüger's bar, the farmers are plotting their revenge on greedy officials. A mysterious travelling salesman from Berlin , Henning, is stirring up trouble - but no one knows why. Meanwhile the Nazis grow stronger and the Communists fight them in the streets. And at the centre of it all, the Mayor, 'Fatty' Gareis, seeks the easy life even as events spiral beyond his control.

As tensions erupt between workers and bosses, town and country, Left and Right, alliances are broken, bribes are taken and plots are hatched, until the tension spills over into violence.
  • Published: 22 February 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141968100
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 608
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About the author

Hans Fallada

Hans Fallada (1893–1947) was the pen name of German author Rudolf Ditzen, whose books were international bestsellers on a par with those of his countrymen Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. He opted to stay in Germany when the Nazis came to power, and eventually had a nervous breakdown when he was put under pressure to write anti-Semitic books. He was cast into a Nazi insane asylum, where he secretly wrote The Drinker. Immediately after the war he wrote his last two novels, The Nightmare and Alone in Berlin, but he died before either book could be published.

portrait photo of Hans Fallada

Also by Hans Fallada

Alone In Berlin
Every Man Dies Alone
Why Do You Wear a Cheap Watch?
Iron Gustav
Tales from the Underworld
Once a Jailbird
Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism
See all

Praise for A Small Circus

Uncommonly vivid and original

Robert Musil

Real love and real humanity

Hermann Hesse

The best account of small-town Germany ... so terribly genuine, it is frightening

Kurt Tucholsky

This novel's genius ... lies in Fallada's ability to reveal ... as well as to analyse the macabre game of musical chairs that was the Weimar Republic. Fallada gives us front-row seats to Germany's decade-long quest for a sacrificial scapegoat that culminated in the Nazi takeover. ... Two years after Alone in Berlin's runaway success, A Small Circus continues the Fallada revival that owes so much to the efforts of its translator, the poet Michael Hofmann

André Naffis-Sahely, Independent

Fallada creates characters with Dickensian prodigality, each yokel, hack, pig and pen-pusher brought to life in Michael Hofmann's beautifully judged translation ... a generous, life-affirming treat

Jake Kerridge, Telegraph

Michael Hofmann ... comes as close as possible to giving us Fallada's work in all its coarse, humorous, immediate, tragic glory

Charlotte Moore, Spectator

Not for the first time, all praise is due to Michael Hofmann's art and feel for nuance. His translation catches the many voices - some exasperated, others bewildered, a few downright angry - that make this bold, exuberant and candid narrative sizzle with life and the relentlessly shocking reality of it all

Irish Times

Fallada's own experiences as a regional journalist in north Germany underlie the action, and it is this sense of realism, combined with an ear for dialogue and an acute understanding of human frailty, that make the novel such an authentic portrayal of an imploding era

Ben Hutchinson, Observer
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