The Slave Ship

Dispassionate and, for that very reason, moving: a newspaper editor documents how the German intelligentsia – academics and artists, novelists and editor-in-chiefs – cringe and writhe following the Nazi’s seizure of power, but also how they create space to continue their pursuit of a good life and a moral good. In the end, however, they too are helpless in the face of the dictatorship. The narrative arc spans from the day of the Nazi’s seizure of power through the bombings of Berlin and Dresden and up to capitulation.

The novel first appeared shortly after the end of World War Two in 1949 and was translated into many languages. 70 years after its publication, it is time to rediscover this post-war bestseller.

Translations have been published, among others, in the following territories: USA (Pantheon Books), UK (Heinemann), France (Gallimard), Netherlands (Stok), Sweden (Bonniers), Finland (Gummerus)