Books by Bertolt Brecht

The leading scholarly publication on Brecht; volume 43 contains a wealth of articles on diverse topics and a reconstruction of the two-chorus version of The Exception and the Rule.

A wholly revised, re-edited and expanded edition of one of the seminal texts of twentieth century theatre. Featuring new translations, additional texts, illustrations and editorial matter, this is a fullest and clearest account yet of Brecht's thinking on theatre and aesthetics.

Highly acclaimed when it was first published in 1967, Frederic Ewen's monumental biographical study of Bertolt Brecht has long been out of print. In response to national demand, Citadel Press is proud to reissue this complete and unabridged text. Of "Bertolt Brecht: His Life, His Art, His Times, the critics wrote: "The finest critical study of Brecht to date. This book is at least a worthy appreciation of a towering, poetic and dramatic genius." -Los Angeles Times "What is particularly striking about Frederic Ewen's biography is that it conveys the excitement, the turmoil and triumph of Brecht's career." -The New York Times "The great thing about Frederic Ewen's luminous biography is that it gently frees Brecht from the bear hugs of the bigots and restores him to us as a whole man, his youth contained in his age." -The Nation

"This publication was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut, India"--page facing title page.

A new paperback edition of what is arguably Brecht's finest comedy, featuring an extensive introduction and commentary and Brecht's own notes.

Brecht is an important lyrical voice of the 20th century, and is honoured as Germany's greatest modern poet. Yet his poetry is relativley little known in the English speaking world. This title takes its cue from a poem about the artist's legacy and looks at how Brecht's work might read today.

Volume four of "Brecht's Collected Plays" contains works from the 1930s, straddling fateful years in German political and cultural history - as well as Brecht's own life. The plays included tackle the Nazi race policy and life under Hitler, the Spanish Civil War and pacifism.

Long in preparation, here are the essential poems and prose of one of the giants of 20th century world literature. Following an authoritative introduction by Reinhold Grimm, the volume includes German and English poems on facing pages.

This volume contains a selection of Brecht's last completed plays, from the eight years between his return from America to Europe after the war and his death in 1956. It contains 'The Antigone of Sophocles', 'The Days of the Commune', 'Turandot or The Whitewashers' Congress'.

Brecht's "Work Journals" cover the period from 1938 to 1955, the years of exile and his return to East Berlin. The accounts of his writing practice provide insight into the creation of his dramatic works, the development of his political thinking and his theories about epic theatre.

This volume brings together two of Brecht's most studied and performed plays: Life of Galileo and Mother Courage and Her Children together with full editorial apparatus and Brecht's own notes and textual variants.

Written between 1939-1942 "The Messingkauf Dialogues" are among the most concise, witty and light-hearted of all Brecht's theoretical discussions of theatre.

An historic publication in which the legendary dramatist emerges, quite like Goethe, as a poet driven by Eros.

Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti, which remained unpublished in his own lifetime, now appears for the first time in English. Me-ti counselled against 'constructing too complete images of the world'. For this work of fragments and episodes, Brecht accumulated anecdotes, poems, personal stories and assessments of contemporary politics. Given its controversial nature, he sought a disguise, using the name of a Chinese contemporary of Socrates, known today as Mozi. Stimulated by his humorous aphoristic style and social focus, as well as an engrained Chinese awareness of the flow of things, Brecht developed a practical, philosophical, anti-systematic ethics, discussing Marxist dialectics, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, the Moscow trials, and the theories behind current events, while warning how ideology makes people the 'servants of priests'.Me-ti is central to an understanding of Brecht's critical reflections on Marxist dialectics and his commitment to change and the non-eternal, the philosophy which informs much of his writing and his most famous plays, such as The Good Person of Szechwan. Readers will find themselves both fascinated and beguiled by the reflections and wisdom it offers. First published in German in 1965 and now translated and edited by Antony Tatlow, Brecht's Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things provides readers with a much-anticipated accessible edition of this important work. It features a substantial introduction to the concerns of the work, its genesis and context - both within Brecht's own writing and within the wider social and political history, and provides an original selection and organisation of texts. Extensive notes illuminate the work and provide commentary on related works from Brecht's oeuvre.

"A selection of Brecht's principal writings for directors and theatre practitioners"--Page 4 of cover.

This volume contains Brecht's post-1950 adaptations of world dramatic classics for the Berliner Ensemble. Brecht's remodeled versions show all of the great dramatist's characteristic preoccupations: hatred of personal greatness, admiration of the people and hatred of war unless waged on behalf of the people who, to him, were the embodiment of wisdom and good sense. The Tutor is a 1950s adaptation of an 18th century play by J.M.R. Lenz and is a savage portrait of the subservience of German intellectuals and schoolmasters to the whims of the rich and powerful. Coriolanus is an unfinished adaptation of Shakespeare's play, using the Roman story to reflect Marxist theories of class struggle. Don Juan, a collaborative adaptation of Molière's play, redefines the charming social parasite as both a ridiculous egoist and an example of a dangerously attractive, theatrically mythic personality type. The Trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen adapts a radio play by Anna Seghers which was based on the original records of the trial of Joan of Arc. Trumpets and Drums is an adaptation of Farquhar's 18th century Restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer, which transfers the action to the American Civil War and introduces comments on imperialism and colonial conquest.

Tony Kushner's lively version of Brecht's parable of good and evil presented in an English/German parallel text edition with an introduction by Tom Kuhn.

Translated by David Harrower, this version of Brecht's parable play is based on a previously unpublished version of the play.

Set in a mythical Chicago, Saint Joan of the Stockyards tells the story of a Salvation Army lieutenant who challenges the power of Pierpoint Mauler, the meat king. The play, which was never staged in Brecht's lifetime, is published here with a new translation and introductory notes.

This play, written during Brecht's exile to the United States and set in pre-Communist China, is a parable of a young woman torn between obligation and reality, between love and practicality, and between her own needs and those of her friends and neighbours.