This is the first in a series of readings, by the actor Harvey Friedman, of passages taken from novels that explore eras of Berlin past.

First published in Germany in 1947 and finally translated into English in 2009, Every Man Dies Alone is a true masterpiece from a bestselling writer who saw his life crumble following his decision not to flee Germany and his refusal to join the Nazi party. The novel presents a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the Nazis and tells the sweeping saga of one working-class couple’s decision to take a stand when their only son is killed at the front. With nothing but their grief and each other against the awesome power of the Reich, Otto and Anna Quangel launch a simple, clandestine resistance campaign that soon has an enraged Gestapo on their trail and a world of terrified neighbors and cynical snitches ready to turn them in. A deeply stirring story of two people standing up for what’s right and for each other.

For more information about this novel and its author please go to the website of Melville House Publishing.

Joyce Hackett’s fiction and non-fiction have appeared in publications including Harpers, The Paris Review, London Magazine, Boston Review, Prospect (UK), The Independent, Salon, and the Berlin Daily Der Tagespiegel. Her first novel, Disturbance of the Inner Ear, won the 2003 the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction by an American Woman. Hackett is currently writing a novel about Frederick Douglass and his German-Jewish mistress, Ottilie Assing. For more, please go to her website.

Photography courtesy of I.L.U. Photoblog

Liesl Schillinger is a New York-based arts writer and literary critic, and a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review. She translates from French, German, and Italian when time allows, and currently is at work on a travel memoir.

Schillinger is especially well-versed, as both critic and translator, in the world of German literature. Please read her recent review of Hans Fallada’s novel Every Man Dies Alone and her translations of Vladimer Kaminer’s story Animal Transport and Bernd Lichtenberg’s story Whakatane Calling. For a complete list of her reviews for the New York Times Book Review please click here.

Image from The Sound of Music courtesy of 20th Century Fox.