Stefan Heym – författare

In this retelling of the biblical story, King Solomon commissions Ethan the Scribe to write the official history of King David. In return for the finest cooking in the land and the wages of a minor prophet, Ethan must write a proper record, full of glory and battles, statecraft and honor—a tribute to David and, of course, to Solomon, his heir. But as Ethan explores the story, he finds another life hidden behind the iron curtain dividing past from present: the story of a David who seduced, lied, bragged, and plundered his way to power. Ethan wonders: which life should be reported in the King David Report?Written by one of Germany's most acclaimed dissident authors, The King David Report is both an analysis of the writer's obligations to truth, and an astute satire on the workings of history and politics in a totalitarian state.

According to the myth of the Wandering Jew, Ahasverus denied Christ a resting place while Christ was traveling to Golgotha. In turn, Ahasverus was cursed to roam the earth until the Second Coming. Stefan Heym's novel re-creates and expands this myth to propose that the right synthesis of love and rebellion can bring humankind to the Kingdom of Heaven.Heym introduces both Ahasverus and Lucifer as angels cast out of heaven for their opinions on God's order. Their respective oppositions continue throughout the rest of time: Ahasverus remains defiant through protest rooted in love and a faith in progress, while Lucifer is rebellious by means of his old, familiar methods. In a funny eternity of run-ins, debates, and meddling with characters such as Christ, a disciple of Luther, and a Marxist professor in East Germany, Ahasverus and Lucifer struggle on, awaiting the Second Coming.

The first-ever English translation reveals the inner voice of a brilliant Bolshevik journalist and politicianThrough this dramatic history by Stefan Heym, we become intimate with the story of the maverick and internationalist Karl Radek, known as the editor of the newspaper of record throughout the Soviet era, Isvestia. Beginning as Lenin's companion at the dawning of the October Revolution, Radek later became Stalin's favorite intellectual - only to find himself entangled in the great purges of the late 1930s and scripting his own trial. In this, his last historical novel, Heym reveals Radek as a brilliant Bolshevik journalist and politician who found himself at every turn of the wheel of fate.A central figure of the communist world, Radek was such a controversial and perennially ambiguous personality that even his historical biography seems a work of fiction. With his thick glasses and most non-Aryan appearance, marked by what some might have seen as distinctively Jewish argumentative skills and humor, Radek's enormous talent as a writer, political acumen, and continuous curiosity carried him through event after event. In the struggles of the revolutionary movement Radek changed sides several times and came into conflict with Stalin, was exiled to Siberia, capitulated and resumed his editorial duties at Isvestia - only to get caught up in the purge trials and sentenced to prison, where he died.As Heym sculpts credible conversations with Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Trotsky, Stalin, and many others (all seen from Radek's perspective) we come to know Radek as a man haunted by the fear that the insurgency will cease to move forward, living his life as a frenzied chase in pursuit of the continuation of the revolution, until the very end. Originally published in Munich in 1995, this first-ever English translation of Radek fashions the inner voice of a unique figure in the global revolutionary wave of the first half of the twentieth century.

The first-ever English translation reveals the inner voice of a brilliant Bolshevik journalist and politicianThrough this dramatic history by Stefan Heym, we become intimate with the story of the maverick and internationalist Karl Radek, known as the editor of the newspaper of record throughout the Soviet era, Isvestia. Beginning as Lenin's companion at the dawning of the October Revolution, Radek later became Stalin’s favorite intellectual – only to find himself entangled in the great purges of the late 1930s and scripting his own trial. In this, his last historical novel, Heym reveals Radek as a brilliant Bolshevik journalist and politician who found himself at every turn of the wheel of fate.A central figure of the communist world, Radek was such a controversial and perennially ambiguous personality that even his historical biography seems a work of fiction. With his thick glasses and most non-Aryan appearance, marked by what some might have seen as distinctively Jewish argumentative skills and humor, Radek’s enormous talent as a writer, political acumen, and continuous curiosity carried him through event after event. In the struggles of the revolutionary movement Radek changed sides several times and came into conflict with Stalin, was exiled to Siberia, capitulated and resumed his editorial duties at Isvestia – only to get caught up in the purge trials and sentenced to prison, where he died.As Heym sculpts credible conversations with Lenin, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Trotsky, Stalin, and many others (all seen from Radek’s perspective) we come to know Radek as a man haunted by the fear that the insurgency will cease to move forward, living his life as a frenzied chase in pursuit of the continuation of the revolution, until the very end. Originally published in Munich in 1995, this first-ever English translation of Radek fashions the inner voice of a unique figure in the global revolutionary wave of the first half of the twentieth century.

Of Smiling Peace is a novel about the hazards of victory, told in the human terms of liberators, liberated and oppressors. As a story it is an absorbing duel of wits and force between resourceful Bert Wolff, American Intelligence officer, and Major Ludwig von Liszt, highly placed German Staff officer. Caught up in this duel—as bait or prize, no one knew which—is the beautiful, shrewd Marguerite Fresneau, Liszt’s mistress.Between the dueling forces is the man Jules-Marie Monaitre—the cynical betrayer-collaborator, the man of Vichy who thinks he can trade “masters” as casually as mistresses. The Monaitres, the Liszts made French North Africa a wilderness of subtly hazardous intrigue.Upon entering Algiers, Wolff is sent to arrest the Nazi Armistice Commission that had been “legally” looting the colony. One man is missing, Liszt, of Franco’s staff, whom Wolff knew by reputation during his days with the Loyalists in Spain. Liszt is a Junker, contemptuous of Nazi party hacks, with German superiority and destiny deeply rooted in his blood and background. To Wolff Liszt becomes the embodiment of the enemy, martially and emotionally.

This is a novel by renowned German writer Stefan Heym, first published in 1951, in which fact and fiction relating to the Communist revolution in Czechoslovakia are skillfully blended in a gripping tale of one of the enigmas of our times.As the story—which centers around three brothers, Thomas, Joseph and Karel—unfolds, the reader becomes acutely aware of the forces that created the anomalies, of those elements brought into focus by the Nazi occupation, the working of the Underground, the tragedies of prison camps, and the hunger for power and survival.

This moving, suspense-filled story about men at war, and after wear, is a historical novel with all the drama and the verity of the best of its kind. Bu tin one major respect it differs from other stories which vividly re-create exciting and meaningful events in the past: the difference is that we, of today, made the history of which this story grew.We know there were men in the American Army like Sergeant Dondolo and Major Willoughby, for whom World War II was chiefly a once-in-a-lifetime chance to feather their own nests in characteristic though quite dissimilar fashions. There were also unimaginative, methodical good eggs like Corporal Ambramovici, tired, honest, and frustrated officers like Colonel DeWitt, and flamboyant brass like General Farrish. And any one of us might have been Lieutenant David Yates, torn between his loyalty to his wife at home and his passion for a French girl, trying to determine, in the welter of conflict, whether he was involved in a Crusade or a Conquest. We might not know so well Sergeant Bing, fighting against his former countrymen, for whom the war was surely a personal crusade.Men, and often women, are the theme of this novel. The story lies in the development of people, especially of Bing and Yates, under the intensified emotions of war. Some of the people are connected with a Propaganda Intelligence Unit, some with an Armored Division; others are civilians on our side and on the enemy’s.“…Unquestionably the most important fiction to come out of World War II…only a writer of understanding and sympathy, combined with creative artistry, can clothe his characters in flesh and blood—and that is exactly what Heym has done.”—Capt. P. J. Searles, reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune, New York Times and Boston Post.