At the Edge of the Night

Banned by the Nazis, this haunting novel by a gay German writer in the 1930s is a rare early work of magic realism. This poignant novel, beautifully translated by Simon Beattie, was, in Lampe''s words, born into a regime where it could not breathe; he hoped that one day it might rise again. It has no one main character, but evokes the sensations and impressions of a sultry September evening on the waterfront of Bremen, with its charm and tenderness, squalor and lust. It contains a stream of images with many characters: children, old and young people, men and women, townsfolk, performers, students and seamen. Things happen as they happen, horrible things, touching things. Its depiction of raw reality was unacceptable to the Nazis: the book was seized by them in December 1933 and withdrawn from sale.