In 2018, Germany celebrates the 125th birthday of one of its most popular authors, who has also been rediscovered internationally in recent years: Hans Fallada. Still Fallada's best-known novel today, "Little Man, What Now?" made its author famous in one fell swoop in 1932.
Written just before the Nazis seized power entirely in the style of New Objectivity, it seemed safer to the publisher at the time, Ernst Rowohlt, to allow this socially critical novel of the economic crisis to appear only in a form that had been heavily edited and shortened by almost a quarter. Passages that were too politically explosive were deleted, entire plot lines (e.g. about the dissolute Berlin nightlife) were removed.
2016 saw the first publication of the unabridged version of this book about the proverbial "little man" of the Weimar Republic, causing a literary sensation.
The heartbreaking love story between Johannes Pinneberg and his "little lamb", who stand their ground against unemployment and the Great Depression, is still touching today with its precise observations of everyday life and its dry comedy. Hardly any other book conveys so playfully the tragedy of the individual in the turmoil of a politically as well as economically confusing time - and is thus a precious lesson for our present!
Jo van Nelsen presents in his gramophone reading the most beautiful passages of the original version, garnished with music of the twenties and thirties. Of course from original shellac records, played from the red suitcase gramophone. In addition, there are, as always, exciting contemporary photos on the screen, which make the time travel perfect.
Text source and more information about this event: http://www.frankfurter-buergerstiftung.de/node/2481
