Books situated in Berlin?

[Hayley Zero]

This summer I will be spending a few days in Berlin & I'm really really looking forward to it! Well, of course I am.

My question to all of you is: can anyone recommend me a wonderful book which story is situated in Berlin? The only one I know of is Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz, die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf.
I love walking through a city where I have 'been before' in a book and imagining that the fictional characters are living there too. Or have lived there. So, I'd really love suggestions!

love,
Hayley

[Pecksie]

I haven't yet read this, but there's this diary by a woman living in Berlin in the last days of WWII, i.e. when the Russians entered the city. It's called "A woman in Berlin" or something like it. I've heard that it reads like fiction... and has the added bonus of being nonfiction :)

[Logos]

The first [and only] that came to mind for me too was A Woman In Berlin; A Diary: Eight Weeks In The Conquered City (first published in 1953, translated by Philip Boehm 2000) by "Anonymous" :)

[slobone]

I recommend Berlin Diaries 1940-1945 by Marie Vassiltchikov. She was a Russian-German aristocrat who knew several of the key figures in the assassination plot against Hitler in 1944.

Also of course Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories.

[barbara0207]

If you like plays, you might read 'Der Hauptmann von Köpenick' by Carl Zuckmeyer and 'Der Biberpelz' by Gerhart Hauptmann. Both are set (and were written) at the beginning of the 20th century. Set about the same time but written in the 1950s, I think, is Wolfdietrich Schnurre's 'Als Vaters Bart noch rot war'. They're semi-autobiographic stories about father and son trying to stay alive in Berlin. They're all rather funny but by no means without depth.

[ballb]

Funeral in Berlin - Len Deighton

[kelby_lake]

The Dark Room is set in Berlin, I think. It's got three stories about ww2- soem photographer, siblings escaping nazis, and a man in 1996 tracing back his grandfather's history with some not too jolly results.

[tractatus]

" Die Madonna im Pelzmantel" Sabahattin Ali

[Hayley Zero]

Thank you so much! Unfortunately my library hasn't got all of them, but I'm going to get the ones they do have. I already got the anonymous diary from the woman in Berlin and it's very beautiful indeed!

[Karl Rommel]

written in the 1950s, I think, is Wolfdietrich Schnurre's 'Als Vaters Bart noch rot war'. They're semi-autobiographic stories about father and son trying to stay alive in Berlin. They're all rather funny but by no means without depth.

Gosh! has it been translated into English? I'd use quaint rather than "funny".
I second this suggestion! Only don't read the zoo story -it's too sad.

[barbara0207]

Gosh! has it been translated into English? I'd use quaint rather than "funny".
I second this suggestion! Only don't read the zoo story -it's too sad.

Don't know about a translation, but Hayley Zero seems to be able to read German.

The stories are certainly not all 'funny', you have a point there. But e.g. the story of the 'borrowed' Christmas tree was hilarious. :D

[Erichtho]

Many of Theodor Fontane's works are situated in Berlin in the later years of the 19th century. If you are interested in Berlin in the 20's I recommend Kurt Tucholsky's satirical anecdotes, Hans Fallada's Kleiner Mann, was nun? and Erich Kästner's Fabian.
Klaus Mann's Mephisto from the 30's is also partly situated in Berlin, for good books situated in East Berlin I recommend Hermann Kant.

If I thought a bit more, I guess I could come up with some more names...but German literature is rather provincial and thus it has never centered around Berlin (or any other German city) as, say, French literature focuses on Paris.

Edit: @barbara - I just noticed your signature. I had to memorise this poem in school...

[chaplin]

Most of Vladimir Nabokov's early novels and stories take place in Berlin or other parts of Germany, and contain interesting, memorable viewpoints and characters of Russian expatriates inside Germany.

[Erichtho]

Most of Vladimir Nabokov's early novels and stories take place in Berlin or other parts of Germany, and contain interesting, memorable viewpoints and characters of Russian expatriates inside Germany.

That's true, but those Russian expatriates pretty much formed a closed society, so that you see nothing of German, or "normal" Berlin life in these works by Nabokov. An exception to that is his King, Queen, Knave.

[downing]

Alfred Döblin- - Berlin Alexanderplatz

[barbara0207]

Many of Theodor Fontane's works are situated in Berlin in the later years of the 19th century. If you are interested in Berlin in the 20's I recommend Kurt Tucholsky's satirical anecdotes, Hans Fallada's Kleiner Mann, was nun? and Erich Kästner's Fabian.
Klaus Mann's Mephisto from the 30's is also partly situated in Berlin, for good books situated in East Berlin I recommend Hermann Kant.

Yes, I should have thought of Fontane and Klaus Mann. Isn't 'Der Untertan' set in Berlin, too?


If I thought a bit more, I guess I could come up with some more names...but German literature is rather provincial and thus it has never centered around Berlin (or any other German city) as, say, French literature focuses on Paris.

'Provincial' does sound a bit negative, doesn't it? But basically, you're right. Neither literature nor other cultural circles or events centered on Berlin, which rather enriched cultural life. Intellectuals and writers were in contact, but did not have to go to Berlin.[/QUOTE]


Edit: @barbara - I just noticed your signature. I had to memorise this poem in school...

Hope you liked it ... :D

[Scheherazade]

Cal lives in Berlin in Middlesex, doesn't he?

[slobone]

Funeral in Berlin - Len Deighton
And several other of his books. Also some of LeCarré's spy novels, such as The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

[Erichtho]

Yes, I should have thought of Fontane and Klaus Mann. Isn't 'Der Untertan' set in Berlin, too?

Yes, Heinrich Mann's Untertan is also partly situated in Berlin.


'Provincial' does sound a bit negative, doesn't it? But basically, you're right. Neither literature nor other cultural circles or events centered on Berlin, which rather enriched cultural life. Intellectuals and writers were in contact, but did not have to go to Berlin.

I didn't mean to include any evaluation, but you are right, provincial can sound negative. What I mean is that in French, Russian or English literature the human is (mostly) shown as a social being, a member of society, while in a non-urban (better?) literature like German literature the human is shown as an individual in a primarily intellectual world - maybe one could say where German literature is not provincial, it is also not urban but rather cosmopolitan.


Hope you liked it ... :D

*cough* :blush:

[Suzie_Q]

May be you're already back from Berlin, but All Souls Day by Cees Nooteboom is a great book.