Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellectual for whom life holds no joy. He struggles to reconcile the wild primeval wolf and the rational man within himself without surrendering to the bourgeois values he despises. His life changes dramatically when he meets a woman who is his opposite, the carefree and elusive Hermine. The tale of the Steppenwolf culminates in the surreal...

It tells the story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who as a mid-teenager in 1958 had an affair with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp. Michael realizes that Hanna is keeping a personal secret she believes is worse than her Nazi past—a...

The sugary, white Kremlin is the heart of Russia in the 2020s, which survived the Red, Gray and White Troubles, closed off from the outside world and plunged into sleep. its refined copy, but in fact it does not belong to anyone. Fifteen short stories from the collection 'Sugar Kremlin', written as if in completely different ways and about different things, add up to a picture of a ghostly,...

Joseph Roth paints a vivid portrait of Emperor Napoleon’s last grab at glory, the hundred days spanning his escape from Elba to his final defeat at Waterloo. This particularly poignant work, set in the first half of 1815 and largely in Paris, is told from two perspectives, that of Napoleon himself and that of the lowly, devoted palace laundress Angelica-an unlucky creature who deeply loves him....

Written in 1914, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with...

nne of Green Gables, published in 1908 by Lucy Maud Montgomery, is the beloved classic story of an orphan girl, Anne Shirley, who is adopted by the Cuthberts, a family living on Prince Edward Island in Canada. With her wit, charm, and strong spirit, Anne quickly wins the hearts of everyone she meets and learns to navigate the world around her, eventually growing into an independent young woman....

The incomparable Lesya Ukrainka (1871-1913) wrote her masterpiece, the drama-extravaganza 'Forest Song' in distant lands, when she missed her homeland very much. And to my dear Kolodyazhnyi, where 'on a moonlit night I ran alone into the forest and waited there for Mavka to appear to me. I was fascinated by this image for the rest of my life.' It is evident that this longing inspired the...