Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Dark times

Without Brecht’s prescience
by
September 2024, no. 468

The Piano Player of Budapest by Roxanne de Bastion

Robinson, $34.99 pb, 268 pp

Dark times

Without Brecht’s prescience
by
September 2024, no. 468

In the winter of 1937–38, Bertolt Brecht, a refugee from National Socialism, lived in furious exile in Svendborg, a small town on the Danish island of Funen. There he wrote and compiled a collection of poems under the working title ‘Gedichte im Exil’ (Poems in Exile). Sometime between galleys and the poet’s move to Sweden following the Munich Agreement, the book was renamed Svendborger Gedichte, the second section of which begins with a simple motto:

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.

The Piano Player of Budapest

The Piano Player of Budapest

by Roxanne de Bastion

Robinson, $34.99 pb, 268 pp

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.