Rebellion

From Joseph Roth, an allegorical yet decidedly modern novelist, comes this story of postwar disillusion, the limits of faith, and "personal fate as governed by the blind, casual workings of a machine controlled by no one and for which no one is responsible" (The New York Times). When Andreas Pum returns from World War I, he has lost a leg but gained a medal. But unlike his fellow sufferers, Pum maintains his unswerving faith in God, Government, and Authority.

Ironically, after a dispute, Pum is imprisoned as a rebel, and all that he believed in is now thrown into upheaval. Moving along at a breakneck clip, Rebellion captures the cynicism and upheavals of a postwar society. Its jazz-like cadences mix with social commentary to create a wise parable about justice and society.

Roth was born in Galicia in 1894. He worked as a journalist in Vienna and Berlin until Hitler's rise to power. In 1933, he fled to Paris, where he joined a growing community of exiled intellectuals.

He died there in 1939. Michael Hofmann is a poet and frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review, and is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost translators of works from German to English. He lives in London.