Alan Bance – författare

This 1982 book examines the novels of Theodor Fontane, one of the most important German novelists of the nineteenth century. He has been well served by English translations and is now regarded as a writer of international standing. Professor Bance begins by setting Fontane's work in the context of nineteenth-century Europe in general, and Germany in particular, which was struggling with its late modernization. The increasing materialism of modern industrial society found its literary correlative in the rise of prose fiction to supplant poetry as the predominant literary mode. Fontane's career reflects this development: beginning as a writer of ballads and balladesque novels, he gradually developed into a realistic novelist capable of treating the most complex social relations. Professor Bance argues that Fontane's œuvre can be seen in terms of a tension between a desire to present the facts and a desire to assert some transcendent poetic truth.

Forced to flee Germany, the eminent drama critic, poet and fiercely vocal anti-Nazi journalist, Alfred Kerr, settled in London in 1935 and became deeply attached to the calm and decency he found in the «island people».With much dry wit and some perplexity, his journal, translated here from German for the first time, savours the quirks and foibles of the enigmatic nation, wondering whether it will emerge at long last as the saviour of civilisation.His humorous and perceptive observations span society – from aristocrats, politicians and literary figures like G. B. Shaw and H. G. Wells to the characters in pubs and courtrooms.Enriched by his expertise in German classical culture, the journal traces the agony of an emigré following Britain’s prolonged attempts to appease the «brown war-menace», shrewdly interwoven with attempts to understand the British, «a mystery, even to themselves».This is the longest ever thank-you letter from a migrant to Great Britain.