Hans Fallada

The Drinker is a novel by German writer Hans Fallada, first published posthumously in 1950. Fallada began the novel, in 1944, when he was imprisoned in a criminal asylum for the attempted murder of his wife. It is autobiographical, in diary form, and tells the story of a man in the grip of alcohol. Beryl Bainbridge …

Based on a true story, this never-before-translated masterpiece was overlooked for years after its author—a bestselling writer before World War II who found himself in a Nazi insane asylum at war’s end—died just before it was published.In a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the Nazis, it tells the …