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Berlin Tales (City Tales) Paperback – Illustrated, 17 Aug. 2009

by Helen Constantine (Editor), Lyn Marven (Translator)

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If there is one city that captures the tragedy and euphoria of the twentieth century, it is Berlin. The scene of socialist revolution and Nazi oppression, invaded and occupied, divided and blockaded, it rose again after German reunification to become a thriving global cultural center. Not surprisingly, Berlin has been home to some of the finest writers in any language, who have rooted their tales in the nooks and neighborhoods of this fascinating place. In Berlin Tales, translator Lyn Marven and editor Helen Constantine offer a collection that reveals the literary brilliance and urban richness found in Berlin over the decades. The stories are grouped together by district-from the Jewish Mitte to Turkish Kreuzberg, from Alexanderplatz to individual streets-and layered on top of each other historically, providing a narrative palimpsest that tells us much about the city and its writers. The city's image, meaning, and appeal to immigrants and tourists find full expression here, in this remarkable array of work from across the decades.

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Product details

Paperback : 256 pages
ISBN-13 : 978-0199559381
Product dimensions : 19.3 x 12.7 x 1.52 cm
Publisher : Oxford University Press, U.S.A.; Illustrated edition (17 Aug. 2009)
Language: : English

Best Sellers Rank: 542,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 4,523 in Fiction Anthologies (Books)
- 16,937 in Short Stories (Books)
- 46,677 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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8 ratings

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These seventeen stories traverse the effervescent city of Berlin, both past and present, in such a beguiling way - that one's compelled to not only read more, but investigate the city for real. (David Marx, David Marx: Book Reviews)

Synopsis

Berlin Tales is a collection of seventeen translated stories associated with Berlin. The book provides a unique insight into the mind of this fascinating city through the eyes of its story-tellers. Nearly twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the stories collected here reflect on the city's fascinating recent history, setting out with the early twentieth-century Berlin of Siegfried Kracauer and Alfred Doblin and culminating in an excellent selection of stories from the best of the new voices in the current boom in German fiction. They are chosen for their conscious exploration of the city's image, meaning, and attraction to immigrants and tourists as well as Berliners from both sides of the Wall. These stories also depict Berlin's distinct districts, not just the differences between East and West but also iconic sites such as Alexanderplatz, individual neighbourhoods (Jewish Mitte, Turkish Kreuzberg) and individual streets. There is an introduction and notes to accompany the stories and a selection of Further Reading. Each story is illustrated with a striking photograph and there is a map of Berlin and its transport system (a frequent motif).There is an introduction and notes to accompany the stories and a selection of Further Reading.

The book will appeal to people who love travelling or are armchair travellers, as much as to those who love Berlin.

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Rachel

Disjointed and Lost in Translation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 August 2013

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Berlin tales is a collection of short stories about Berlin. Many of them are translated and I think much got lost in translation and often the translation is too literally as the stories are disjointed and often fail to make sense. If the book was not called Berlin Tales it would be difficult to work out where many of the stories were set as they make little reference to Berlin in them.

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leonormski

A look back at a city that I love

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 April 2011

I lived in Berlin for two years and when I was there, I came across this book at a bookshop in Berlin, and bought it here on Amazon. I've read the large majority of the stories and even though I only lived there for a short while, the descriptions and the lives of those who lived (or probably lived) in the city after the fall of the Wall were very vivid against the backdrop of the city where I stayed. It's even more fascinating to read the stories and then walked the same streets as the characters in the book walked, and to compare and contrast the changing facades between the old and the new Berlin, as the city is constantly in flux and never more so in the last 20 years.

Read it if you've never been to Berlin to find out what life was like in the recent history of the city, but definitely read it if you've been or live in Berlin.

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Geraint Waters

Better in the original language, I suspect

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 April 2010

This is an excellent idea for a book about time and place, in this case Berlin. A good varied collection of stories from a range of authors, some of whom will be familiar to non-specialists in German literature, more of whom will be unfamiliar. All of which adds up to an attractive offering for a literary exploration of Berlin over the last century.

Unfortunately, the quality of the translation here makes the stories virtually unreadable for me. The same stilted style is present in each of the stories, eliminating the nuances of literary style which are undoubtedly present in the original. The translator (Lynn Marven) does not appear to possess the ability to convey the atmosphere and spirit of the original writings, and is bogged down in trying to translate the contents and structure of the original German sentences far too literally and without any literary imagination. Here's one example which I've just selected at random: "I was probably more unhappy than happy at the time, so my silent outpouring of emotion can hardly have been an expression of world-encompassing joie de vivre extending even to the ugliest spots, but rather of recognition and of belonging to what I recognized" (p68). The adjectival participles flow very naturally in German, but make for very clumsy prose in English. And I could have selected similar sentences from virtually every page in the book.

A worthwhile enterprise, but badly let down by the mechanical nature of the translation. Pity the same selection of stories is not available in one book in German, as it would be well worth reading.

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