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The Black Obelisk
''The Black Obelisk'' (german: Der schwarze Obelisk) is a novel written in 1956 by the German author Erich Maria Remarque. This novel paints a portrait of Germany in the early 1920s, a period marked by hyperinflation and rising nationalism. Ludwig, the protagonist, is in his mid twenties; just like most of his friends, he is a World War I veteran. Although aspiring to be a poet, he works for a friend, Georg, managing the office of a small tombstone company. He tries to earn some extra money as a private tutor to a son of a bookstore owner, and by playing the organ at the chapel of a local insane asylum. Thanks to this diversity of activities, Ludwig interacts with a wide cross-section of the German population of his town and the surrounding villages and we are allowed to witness those interactions. We see, for example, businessmen – some trying to stick to the old principles and going bankrupt, others speculating on stocks, exploiting the system and becoming rich in morall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Kiepenheuer & Witsch is a German publishing house, established in 1948 by Joseph C. Witsch and on behalf of Gustav Kiepenheuer (who was already terminally ill). The partners initially held respectively 30% and 40% of the company's share capital. Kiepenheuer died in 1949, after which Witsch took over control and broke the original link with the existing Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag (publishing house) in Weimar (which had ended up in the Soviet occupation zone). For the Kiepenheuer & Witsch publishing business several years of major organisational restructuring followed. The first books to be published under the Kiepenheuer & Witsch imprint was the novel ''Marion'' by Vicki Baum, which appeared in 1951. In 1953 the firm acquired a new head office incorporating, for the first time, its own onsite publishing facilities, at Cologne-Marienburg. Authors Kiepenheuer & Witsch fiction authors include: *John Banville *Julian Barnes *Vicki Baum *Saul Bellow *Heinrich Böll *Breyte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |