John Linklater
Death Writes
The Drinker
By Hans Fallada (Translated by Charlotte & A L Lloyd)
Libris 282pp £14.95 order from our bookshop
The Legend of the Holy Drinker
By Joseph Roth
Chatto & Windus 49pp £7.95 order from our bookshop
The authors of these two posthumously-published works both died alcoholic. Roth’s book was written during the first four months of 1939 in a Paris bar where he was dying. Fallada’s semi-autobiographical novel was written during a fortnight of the Autumn of 1944 in an asylum for the criminally insane, where he was held pending charges for the attempted murder of his estranged wife.
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