Description: Wolfgang Koeppen's postwar masterpiece in a luminous new translation by the poet Michael Hofmann
Brief description: Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996) was born in Greifswald and died in Munich. He worked as a junior chef, a dramaturge, and an editor. In 1951, 1953 and 1954 three novels were published to high acclaim for accurately capturing the atmosphere of the republic under Konrad Adenauer: Pigeons on the Grass, The Hothouse, and Death in Rome.
Review Quotes: Those who haven't read this novel cannot claim to know German literature after 1945.--Marcel Reich-Ranicki