Address Unknown

(Paperback, Main - Classic edition)

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Description

Can friendship survive in a divided world Written on the eve of the Holocaust as a series of letters between a Jew in America and his German friend, Kressmann Taylor's classic novel is a haunting tale of a society poisoned by Nazism.

First published in 1938, Address Unknown met with immediate success in English but was banned in Europe by the Nazis. Tragically prescient about what was to come, it was one of the earliest works of fiction to warn against the growing dangers of fascism and antisemitism in Europe. It became an international bestseller and has been translated into more than twenty languages.

A novel of enduring impact with a memorable sting in its tail, Address Unknown stands as a powerful reminder of the dangers posed by the rhetoric of intolerance.

Reviews

This modern story is perfection itself. It is the most effective indictment of Nazism to appear in fiction. * The New York Times Book Review *
A tale already known and profoundly appreciated by members of my generation. It is to our part in World War II what Uncle Tom's Cabin was to the Civil War. -- Kurt Vonnegut
Remarkably, despite the multitude of testimony and first-person accounts of life under Nazism with which we've been deluged since its first publication, this old, slim fiction manages to smuggle us across time and space into one eloquent tale of perfidy. -- Anne Karpf * Guardian *
That this short, fleeting story has lasted so long is not only because of its artistic achievement, and not only because, written in 1938, it astonishingly anticipated the horror that was yet to come. It is because its prescience is not confined to its time. It saw into our own future too. -- Jonathan Freedland * The Guardian *
Captivating, beautiful and unimaginably powerful, a book for our times -- Philippe Sands
A short story with a long, dark echo; fierce, clever, and timely in today's world. -- Julian Barnes
This stunning classic brilliantly defines what happens when people are swept up in a poisonous ideology. -- Val Hennessy * The Daily Mail *

Author Bio

Kathrine Kressmann Taylor was living in New York with her husband and working as a copywriter when Address Unknown was published in Story magazine. She later taught at Gettysburg College and is also known for her novel Until That Day. She died in 1996.