Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996) is one of the best known German authors of the postwar period. His most acclaimed novels are Pigeons on the Grass (1951), The Hothouse (1953), and Death in Rome (1954).

“[In] excellent translation of Koeppen's Amerikafahrt… [the author] traces his travels across the US as he reflects on the state of American culture and its meaning for the future of the Western world…Everywhere he sees technical and material progress but wonders if that will be used for public enlightenment or centralized money-driven consumerism. Seeing the Statue of Liberty, he wonders which symbol predominates, her torch or her unseeing eyes. Given the polarity of contemporary America, Koeppen's interrogation of life in the US resonates today as well as it did when first published…Highly recommended.”  ·  Choice“To an American, reading it is like being plunged into a fever dream, in which recognizable places and people are distorted into demons—and also, sometimes, into angels. For the fascination of Koeppen’s book is that these two visions of America, as a peaceable, multicultural Heaven and an acquisitive, conformist Hell, never quite manage to cancel one another out.”  ·  Adam Kirsch in The New Republic

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionJourney through AmericaBibliography

Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996) is one of the best known German authors of the postwar period. His most acclaimed novels are Pigeons on the Grass (1951), The Hothouse (1953), and Death in Rome (1954).

“[In] excellent translation of Koeppen's Amerikafahrt… [the author] traces his travels across the US as he reflects on the state of American culture and its meaning for the future of the Western world…Everywhere he sees technical and material progress but wonders if that will be used for public enlightenment or centralized money-driven consumerism. Seeing the Statue of Liberty, he wonders which symbol predominates, her torch or her unseeing eyes. Given the polarity of contemporary America, Koeppen's interrogation of life in the US resonates today as well as it did when first published…Highly recommended.”  ·  Choice“To an American, reading it is like being plunged into a fever dream, in which recognizable places and people are distorted into demons—and also, sometimes, into angels. For the fascination of Koeppen’s book is that these two visions of America, as a peaceable, multicultural Heaven and an acquisitive, conformist Hell, never quite manage to cancel one another out.”  ·  Adam Kirsch in The New Republic

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionJourney through AmericaBibliography

Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996) is one of the best known German authors of the postwar period. His most acclaimed novels are Pigeons on the Grass (1951), The Hothouse (1953), and Death in Rome (1954).

“[In] excellent translation of Koeppen's Amerikafahrt… [the author] traces his travels across the US as he reflects on the state of American culture and its meaning for the future of the Western world…Everywhere he sees technical and material progress but wonders if that will be used for public enlightenment or centralized money-driven consumerism. Seeing the Statue of Liberty, he wonders which symbol predominates, her torch or her unseeing eyes. Given the polarity of contemporary America, Koeppen's interrogation of life in the US resonates today as well as it did when first published…Highly recommended.”  ·  Choice“To an American, reading it is like being plunged into a fever dream, in which recognizable places and people are distorted into demons—and also, sometimes, into angels. For the fascination of Koeppen’s book is that these two visions of America, as a peaceable, multicultural Heaven and an acquisitive, conformist Hell, never quite manage to cancel one another out.”  ·  Adam Kirsch in The New Republic

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionJourney through AmericaBibliography