This sweeping saga of love in dangerous times is deemed by many to be Hans Fallada's greatest work. Set amidst the 1923 collapse of the German economy, it is a vivid portrayal of the food and money shortages that led to rioting in the cities and unemployed soldiers marauding through the countryside-a depiction of unrest that made Fallada's publisher so fearful of Nazi retribution that upon the book's 1937 publication he told him, "If this book destroys us, then at least we'll be destroyed for something that's worth it."
It appears here in its first unabridged English translation, based on the 1938 translation by Philip Owens that has been revised and restored by Thorsten Carstensen and Nicholas Jacobs. Carstensen also provides an afterword discussing why the original version of the book was so heavily edited . . . and why Fallada's publisher thought a love story might get them killed.

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