''Emil and the Detectives'' () is a 1929 novel set mainly in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, by the German writer Erich Kästner and illustrated by

Walter Trier Walter Trier (25 June 1890, Prague – 8 July 1951 Craigleith, near Collingwood, Ontario, Canada) was a Czech-German illustrator, best known for his work for the children's books of Erich Kästner and the covers of the magazine '' Lilliput' ...

. It was Kästner's first major success and the only one of his pre-1945 works to escape

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

censorship. The book was immediately popular and the original version sold an initial two million copies. First published in English in 1931, it has never been out of print and has been translated into at least 59 languages. It is Kästner's best-known work. Compared with similar literature at the time, its most unusual aspect was its realistic setting in a contemporary Berlin peopled with some fairly rough characters, not in a sanitized fantasy world; also that it refrained from obvious moralizing, letting the characters' deeds speak for themselves. Emil was the

first name First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

of Kästner's father.

References

External links

' project at the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin (Central and State Library)
1929 German-language novels Novels by Erich Kästner German children's novels Novels set in Berlin Children's mystery novels German novels adapted into films 1929 German novels 1929 children's books {{1920s-mystery-novel-stub