{"product_id":"ksebier-takes-berlin-isbn-9781681372723","title":"Käsebier Takes Berlin","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn English for the first time, a panoramic satire about the star-making machine, set in celebrity-obsessed Weimar Berlin.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Berlin, 1930, the name Käsebier is on everyone’s lips. A literal combination of the German words for “cheese” and “beer,” it’s an unglamorous name for an unglamorous man—a small-time crooner who performs nightly on a shabby stage for laborers, secretaries, and shopkeepers. Until the press shows up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the blink of an eye, this everyman is made a star: a star who can sing songs for a troubled time. Margot Weissmann, the arts patron, hosts champagne breakfasts for Käsebier; Muschler the banker builds a theater in his honor; Willi Frächter, a parvenu writer, makes a mint off Käsebier-themed business ventures and books. All the while, the journalists who catapulted Käsebier to fame watch the monstrous media machine churn in amazement—and are aghast at the demons they have unleashed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eKäsebier Takes Berlin\u003c\/i\u003e, the journalist Gabriele Tergit wrote a searing satire of the excesses and follies of the Weimar Republic. Chronicling a country on the brink of fascism and a press on the edge of collapse, Tergit’s novel caused a sensation when it was published in 1931. As witty as Kurt Tucholsky and as trenchant as Karl Kraus, Tergit portrays a world too entranced by fireworks to notice its smoldering edges.\"Portraying a society declining into fascism, the novel resounds with hollow laughter and is crisp throughout, but the journalistic sections feel most alive. These tableaus, which blend absurdism and poignancy, match the comic invention of classics like Michael Frayn’s \u003ci\u003eTowards the End of the Morning\u003c\/i\u003e and Evelyn Waugh’s \u003ci\u003eScoop\u003c\/i\u003e.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In a pace that’s intensely frenetic, Tergit captures the pulse of the period brilliantly in her prose – light and airy, comic and satirical, but also dark and profound...Käsebier Takes Berlin is an excellent novel well worth reading.” —\u003ci\u003eRadhika’s Readers Retreat \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A star is born, Weimar-style, in this German novel originally published in 1931....Tergit's novel deserves a place alongside Döblin's \u003ci\u003eBerlin Alexanderplatz\u003c\/i\u003e, Canetti's \u003ci\u003eAuto-da-Fé\u003c\/i\u003e, and other key works of the period.\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Tergit's prose is energetically rendered by Sophie Duvernoy. . .Tergit's gift for engaging dialogue enlivens the novel. But beneath the witty comedy and acute observation lies a sober reminder of the dangers brewing: references to mounting debt and widespread bankruptcy; and as the election posters go up, auctions are held and suitcases of the vulnerable stand ready.\" —Rebecca K. Morrison, \u003ci\u003eTLS\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eGabriele Tergit \u003c\/b\u003e(1894–1982) was a novelist and journalist, known initially for her courtroom reporting. After gaining fame for \u003ci\u003eKäsebier Takes Berlin\u003c\/i\u003e,  her writing career was cut short when the Nazis rose to power in 1933.  She immediately fled to Czechoslovakia, then Palestine, and finally  London. After the war, her work was largely forgotten by the public, but  she continued to work on behalf of other authors as the honorary  secretary of the London PEN Centre of expatriate German-speaking  authors.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSophie Duvernoy\u003c\/b\u003e has translated work by Sibylle Berg, Sabine Rennefanz, and Zora del Buono, and has written for the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThomson Reuters\u003c\/i\u003e,  and other publications. She is the winner of the 2015 Gutekunst Prize  for young translators and is currently pursuing a PhD at Yale  University.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305144799461,"sku":"NP9781681372723","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681372723.jpg?v=1767730640","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/ksebier-takes-berlin-isbn-9781681372723","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}