Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz was born in Berlin in 1915. He left Germany in 1935 for Oslo, Norway, studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and wrote two novels, including The Passenger. Boschwitz eventually settled in England in 1939, although he was interned as a German "enemy alien" after war broke out--despite his Jewish background--and subsequently shipped to Australia. In 1942, Boschwitz was allowed to return to England, but his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine and he was killed along with all 362 passengers. He was twenty-seven years old.
Philip Boehm has translated more than thirty novels and plays by German and Polish writers, including Herta Müller, Franz Kafka, and Hanna Krall. For these translations he has received numerous awards, including NEA and Guggenheim fellowships and most recently the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize. He also works as a theater director and playwright.
"Uncannily prescient . . . The Passenger plunges the reader into
the gloom of Nazi Germany as the darkness was descending. It
deserved to be read when it was written. It certainly deserves to
be read now."
--The Guardian
"A jewel of a rediscovery . . . superbly translated by Philip Boehm
. . . The Passenger is a riveting, noirish, intensely filmic
portrait of an ambivalent fugitive, cornered but not captured,
safest when in motion, at greatest risk when forced to rest."
--Wall Street Journal "The Passenger reads as though a painting by
the German anti-Nazi artist George Grosz has been turned into
words, the text almost vibrating with fury at the lies, theft,
murder and betrayal. It is also a highly accomplished work, filled
with vivid characterisation, sharp dialogue and intensely observed
scenes . . . This English edition, skillfully translated by Philip
Boehm, is a fitting memorial to a writer of great insight and
talent--and an important historical work that vividly recreates the
terror experienced by Jews in 1930s Germany."
--Financial Times "Stunning . . . clairvoyant . . . Boschwitz's
novel pulsates with fine, understated descriptions . . . One comes
away marveling not only at Boschwitz's craftsmanship but at what
can only be called his human spirit . . . The Passenger resembles a
message in a bottle: cautionary, despairing, a literary
warning."
--Ruth Margalit, The New York Review of Books
"Powerful . . . A prophetic and chilling portrait of the terror of
life under the Nazi regime . . . compared to masterpieces by Franz
Kafka and Hans Fallada."
--The Telegraph "A major lit-er-ary event . . . Boschwitz's own
sto-ry and dev-as-tat-ing nov-el are uncan-ny prophe-cies of our
own time marked by the degra-da-tion of human-i-ty in flight,
search-ing for a place to call home."
--Jewish Book Council "A global sensation . . . a literary time
capsule . . . Written in 1938, The Passenger arrives now as a
remedy for the historical amnesia that encourages repeated
misfortune."
--Forward
"The Passenger is so viscerally absorbing that as I turned each
page I shuddered, as if from the same chill breeze felt by the
novel's main character . . . in his desperate attempt to flee
Germany. Indeed, the gem-like precision of Boschwitz's writing
evokes, as few other books have, the anxiety and terror . . . in
the Third Reich. . . An unnerving, no-holds-barred account of the
Nazi regime's escalating war against the Jews."
--Mosaic
"Vibrating with rage at the murder and betrayal of German Jewry . .
. this is an enthralling, disturbing but also nuanced story that
takes the reader into the heart of the Third Reich's terror
state."
--Financial Times
"With The Passenger alone, Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz claims a
place alongside the likes of Thomas Mann, Heinrich Böll and Hans
Fallada as one of 20th century Germany's greatest novelists."
--New European
"Thriller-tense . . . Like Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin, The
Passenger is a rediscovered book, and not only shares its menacing
claustrophobia but more than matches it for potency and
profundity."
--New Statesman "Boschwitz is remarkable not only for his
prescience . . . but also for his rare insight and minutely
observed depictions of characters from every strata of German
society. Witty at the same time that it's tragic, surreal even in
its hyper-reality, The Passenger is . . . a masterpiece."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred) "Uncanny . . . This chilling time
capsule offers a startling image of fascism taken hold."
--Publishers Weekly
"Boschwitz's tale trembles with tension and eerily anticipates the
central role the German train system would later play in the
horrific logistics of the Holocaust. In a new translation, this
remains a potent and uniquely rendered work of witness."
--Booklist
"Vivid and disquieting . . . Boschwitz relates this fight for
self-preservation--not just of life, but of identity--in harrowing
psychological detail . . . An arresting glimpse at a pivotal moment
in history."
--Shelf Awareness "This brilliant rediscovered thriller is up there
with the best Second World War novels. The existential crisis that
overtook Jews in Nazi Germany is rivetingly caught."
--The Times (London) "A remarkable rediscovery from a
long-forgotten author. For all the novel's literary deftness, it
remains raw with the shock of finding that Germany is no longer
home but a place of brutality and exclusion. A powerful record of
Berlin's dark past, it is also an insight into the tragic condition
of anyone who no longer feels safe in their own country, who cannot
trust the majority, who senses the laws and social mores of an
intolerant nation bending against them."
--Exberliner
"In the individual sorrow and desperation of a Jew travelling in a
walled space of psychedelic horrors, Boschwitz, himself a tragic
passenger, saw the larger story of the abandoned . . . The
Passenger shows, as all great novels born of the pathologies of
hate do, how art alone can redeem history."
--OPEN Magazine
"Eerily prescient . . . It is hard to imagine a more tragic end for
an author who wrote with such adroit understanding about the
mundane madness that lies behind genocidal cruelty and arbitrary
classifications."
--Rain Taxi
"What a find this is, a novel that lay buried and forgotten for 80
years. It's part John Buchan, part Franz Kafka and completely
gripping."
--Jonathan Freedland, Guardian journalist "Powerful . . .
extraordinary . . . The Passenger truly captures the sense of inner
disintegration that happens when your civic and human rights have
been stripped away and you become this other being, even to
yourself."
--Lisa Appignanesi, author of Everyday Madness "The Passenger, a
newly recovered classic of the end of Jewish Europe, dramatizes the
route to hell with indignant clarity, passion, intelligence, and
rueful goddamned humor."
--Joshua Cohen, author of Book of Numbers "I didn't want The
Passenger to end--and not only because I was swept up in its
restless, hypnotic style. This story of a Jewish man on the run has
a Scheherazade-like quality: if he can stay in motion, perhaps the
fate we know awaits him will somehow be deferred. A haunting and
unsettling novel."
--Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
"Prophetic and flawlessly penetrating . . . Boschwitz's tale of an
individual scurrying from train station to train station across a
homeland that is no longer home could not have been more prescient
of the terror the Nazis would unleash . . . What Boschwitz saw
clearly was the utter despoliation of one's identity, of one's
trust in the world, and ultimately of one's very humanity."
--from the Preface by André Aciman "The Passenger is a
miracle."
--Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany "A chronicle of dehumanization with
the pace of a thriller, evoking Kafka's The Trial or Imre Kertész's
books."
--El País, Spain "A literary sensation."
--Haaretz, Israel "A missing piece rediscovered, to stand next to
Elie Wiesel."
--Gazzetta del Sud, Italy "A rare novel of daily life in the early
hours of catastrophe. This masterpiece is the work of a 23-year-old
author."
--Marianne, France "If you have to choose one book of
twentieth-century history, read The Passenger. A truly exceptional
novel."
--Mazvydas Karalius Review, Lithuania "Important and gripping."
--Dagens Nyheter, Sweden "If you have to choose one book of
twentieth-century history, read The Passenger. A truly exceptional
novel."
--Mazvydas Karalius Review, Lithuania "A tragicomic fable of the
human condition and a comedy of morals and characters of
exceptional psychological acuity, The Passenger evokes the worlds
of Kafka and Charlie Chaplin." --Le Figaro, France "A masterpiece."
--L'Avvenire, Italy "An incredibly gripping rediscovery." --SRF
Literaturclub, Germany
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