"Fallada deserves high praise for having reported so realistically, so truthfully, with such closeness to life."-Hermann Hesse

"Superb."-Graham Greene

This is the book that led to Hans Fallada's downfall with the Nazis. The story of a young couple struggling to survive the German economic collapse was a worldwide sensation and was made into an acclaimed Hollywood movie produced by Jews, leading Hitler to ban Fallada's work from being translated.

Nonetheless, it remains, as The Times Literary Supplement notes, "the novel of a time in which public and private merged even for those who wanted to stay at home and mind their own business."