Berlin Alexanderplatz

Alfred Doblin

Jun 2019 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Julian Elfer

About this audiobook

Berlin Alexanderplatz, the great novel of Berlin and the doomed Weimar Republic, is one of the great books of the twentieth century, gruesome, farcical, and appalling, word drunk, pitchdark. In Michael Hofmann's extraordinary new translation, Alfred Döblin's masterpiece lives in English for the first time. As Döblin writes: The subject of this book is the life of the former cement worker and haulier Franz Biberkopf in Berlin. As our story begins, he has just been released from prison, where he did time for some stupid stuff; now he is back in Berlin, determined to go straight. To begin with, he succeeds. But then, though doing all right for himself financially, he gets involved in a set-to with an unpredictable external agency that looks an awful lot like fate. Three times the force attacks him and disrupts his scheme. The first time it comes at him with dishonesty and deception. Our man is able to get to his feet, he is still good to stand. Then it strikes him a low blow. He has trouble getting up from that, he is almost counted out. And finally it hits him with monstrous and extreme violence.

Ratings and reviews

When it's about people talking to each other the narrator makes it impossible knowing who is exactly talking about what.

About the author

Alfred Döblin (1878-1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz. A prolific writer whose work spans more than half a century and a wide variety of literary movements and styles, Döblin is one of the most important figures of German literary modernism.

British-born Julian Elfer is an award-winning New York City-based actor and audiobook narrator. With over 100 titles to his credit, Julian brings a unique facility for characterization in fiction and an empathy for the personalities and events of the past.

Michael Hofmann is a German-born, British-educated poet and translator. He teaches in the English department at the University of Florida.