Books by Christopher Isherwood

Goodbye to Berlin, a captivating novel by Christopher Isherwood, was first published in 1989 by Vintage Publishing. This masterpiece, which falls under the genre of semi-autobiographical novels, paints a vivid picture of Berlin in the early 1930s, just as Hitler was rising to power. Isherwood brilliantly captures the spirit of that time, immersing readers in the city's dark underbelly, its vibrant nightlife, and its people's resilience amidst political and social upheaval. This book is a must-read for any lover of historical fiction or anyone interested in the effects of politics and ideology on ordinary people's lives. As always, Vintage Publishing has done a fantastic job of bringing this important work to the public. This English language edition is a testament to Isherwood's powerful storytelling and his ability to transport readers to a different time and place.

“»Farvel til Berlin« er en totalt levende og præcis og helt nærværende og vedkommende skildring af en by i en historisk overgangsfase og i en skræmmende forvandlingsproces.” – Berlingske, 6 stjerner “Mesterroman om Weimarrepublikkens sidste dage genudgives på forbilledlig vis på dansk.” – Politiken, 5 hjerter“Isherwood skriver ganske enkelt forrygende” – WeekendavisenFarvel til Berlin er en af det 20. århundredes helt store klassikere og ligger til grund for den Oscarvindende film Cabaret. Farvel til Berlin foregår i 1930’erne og maler levende kontrasterne mellem glamour og uhumskhed, umådeholden livsstil og fornedrelse, som kendertegnede livet i Berlin på den tid. Isherwood beskriver, hvordan de folk, der var truet af nazisternes fremturen, levede deres liv; den velhavende jødiske rigmandsdatter, Natalia Landauer, et homoseksuelt par, Peter og Otto, samt den vidunderligt dekadente, men rodløse Sally Bowles.”Et fremragende billede på et samfund i forfald.” George Orwell"Når man læser denne roman, er det som at overhøre anekdoter i en overfyldt bar, mens verdenshistorien banker utålmodigt på vinduet.” The GuardianFarvel til Berlin blev udgivet for første gang i 1939 og er blevet lavet om til både en film og et skuespil med titlen I Am a Camera med Julie Harris i rollen som Sally Bowles. I filmen Cabaret spilles rollen af Liza Minnelli. Med træffende præcision og humor beskriver Isherwood den by, han selv boede i fra 1929 til 1933; han viser Berlins charmerende avenuer og caféer og det svulstige natteliv; han beretter om drømmerne, de excentriske, de rodløse og nasserne samt gangstere og millionærer uden skyggen af moral. Hitlers skygge hviler tungt over Isherwoods brogede slæng – den vidunderligt dekadente Sally Bowles, den trinde Fräulein Schröder, som overvejer at få formindsket sin barm kirurgisk for at slippe for sin hjertebanken, familien Nowak, som hele tiden skændes og lever med fattigdom og sygdom, og den velhavende, jødiske familie, Landauer, som er dømt til undergang.Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) er en af det 20. århundredes mest bemærkelsesværdige forfattere. Desuden er han nok den første erklærede homoseksuelle forfatter, som er blevet læst af et bredt publikum. Hans litterære omgangskreds talte blandt andre W.H. Auden, Truman Capote, E.M. Forster, Stephen Spender og Tennessee Williams.Christopher Isherwood blev født i High Lane i Cheshire, England, I 1904. Han droppede ud af Cambridge, inden han fik gjort sin uddannelse færdig, og forsøgte sig kortvarigt med medicinstudiet. I 1928 fik han udgivet sin første roman, All the Conspirators, efterfulgt af sin anden roman i 1932, The Memorial. I 1928 forlod han England og levede fire år i Berlin og fem år i forskellige andre lande i Europa, blandt andet i Portugal, Holland, Belgien og Danmark. I 1939 rejste han til Californien, hvor han boede resten af sit liv. Fra sin tid i Berlin fik han inspiration til sine to romaner Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) og Farvel til Berlin (1939). Isherwood arbejdede for American Friends Service Committee under noget af krigen. I 1946 blev han amerikansk statsborger. Efter at have bosat sig i USA, skrev han fem romaner: Prater Violet, The World in the Evening, Down There on a Visit, A Single Man og A Meeting by the River. Han skrev også en rejsebog om Sydamerika, The Condor and the Cows, samt Ramakrishna and his Disciples, en bog om indisk spiritualitet. I 1971 fik han udgivet bogen Kathleen and Frank, som bygger på brevkorrespondancen mellem hans mor og far samt morens dagbog. I 1977 udkom Christopher and his Kind, en selvbiografi over hans liv mellem 1929 og 1939. Endelig udkom My Guru and His Disciple i 1980, som handler om hans venskab med Swami Prabhavananda. Christopher Isherwood døde i 1986.”Sally Bowles fik det helt store fokus i musicalen Cabaret, men teaterstykket lever ikke op til bogens gennemslagskraft og sproglige overskud.” Time (Det 20. århundredes 100 bedste engelsksprogede romaner)”Isherwoods stemme er klar og tydelig i dette værk, som er en nærmest magisk og sprudlende forening af historie og skaberkraft. Uanset hvor mange gange vi læser bogen, vil hver gang føles som den første.” Anmeldelse i The New York Times

In November 1929, Christopher Isherwood - determined to become a 'permanent foreigner' - packed a rucksack and two suitcases and left England on a one-way ticket for Berlin. With incredible candour and wit, Isherwood recalls the decadence of Berlin's night scene and his route to sexual liberation.

Christopher Isherwoods klassiker fra 1964 om den homoseksuelle George, der underviser på et college i det sydlige Californien og kæmper med sorgen og en eksistentiel krise i kølvandet på kæresten Jims død i en bilulykke. Handlingen i "Ene mand" udspiller sig hen over én dag i Georges liv i 1962. George står op, tager på arbejde, snakker med de studerende og kolleger og naboer, han tager i træningscenter, og han besøger sin fordrukne veninde, der oprindeligt kommer fra England ligesom George. Og gennem hele den rejse, som dagen byder på, diskuterer Georges indre stemme muligheden for nogensinde igen at finde noget godt og smukt i en verden, der ikke accepterer den person han er, og som har stjålet hans livs kærlighed fra ham.Romanen blev fejret som et mesterværk allerede ved udgivelsen. I 2009 blev romanen indspillet som film med Colin Firth og Julianne Moore i hovedrollerne. Colin Firth modtog en Oscarnominering for bedste mandlige hovedrolle for filmen.

This is the story of Christopher Isherwood's parents - their meeting in 1895, marriage in 1903 after his father had returned from the Boer War, and his father's death in an assault on Ypres in 1915, which left his mother a widow until her own death in 1960.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SIMON CALLOWIn 1939, as Europe approaches war, Isherwood, an instinctive pacifist, travels west to California, seeking a new set of beliefs to replace the failed Leftism of the thirties.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PICO IYERIn September 1947, long before mass tourism and with no knowledge of Spanish, Christopher Isherwood and William Caskey left for a six-month tour of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina.

Prater Violet resembles episodes in Goodbye to Berlin and keeps up the same high level of excellence' - Edmund WilsonAn impatient phone call from the temperamental Austrian director, Friedrich Bergmann, introduces a young Christopher Isherwood to the film industry.

The First World War is over. Tall, bony and awkward he finds himself torn between a desire to emulate his heroic father, who led a life of quiet sacrifice, and resentment toward his father's roguish friend Edward Blake, who survived the war only to throw himself into gay life in Berlin.

The scene is 1920s Kensington and Philip and Joan are testing the very limits of politeness and restraint as they fight to expunge the oppression of their mother - by whatever means necessary.

This second volume of Christopher Isherwood's remarkable diaries opens on his fifty-sixth birthday as the fifties give way to the decade of social and sexual revolution.

At a party in the Hollywood Hills, Stephen Monk finds his wife in the arms of another man. Betrayed and furious, he packs his belongings and returns to the home he was born in. But most of all, the memory of his lost love, Elizabeth Rydal, haunts him. Can he forgive his wife, and most importantly, himself?

Breaking a long silence Oliver, a young Englishman, writes to his elder brother, Patrick.

Four portraits, four settings, four narrators, all known as 'Christopher Isherwood'. Often regarded as the best of his novels, Down There on a Visit tells the vivid stories of Isherwood's life that, together with The Berlin Novels, were to have comprised his great unfinished epic novel.

Christopher Isherwood was a celebrated English writer when he met the Californian teenager Don Bachardy on a Santa Monica beach in 1952. They spent their first night together on Valentine's Day 1953. Defying the conventions, the two men began living as an openly gay couple in an otherwise closeted Hollywood. This book tells their story.

This text contains accounts of the author's conversion to hindu, his pacifism during World War II, his time as a screenwriter in Hollywood, and his friendships with the likes of Garbo, Chaplin, Brecht, Huxley, Stravinsky, Geilgud, Olivier and Burton.

In this brilliantly perceptive novel, a middle aged professor living in California is alienated from his students by differences in age and nationality, and from the rest of society by his homosexuality. Isherwood explores the depths of the human soul and its ability to triumph over loneliness, alienation and loss.

Frpm Hollywood and the worlds of music and letters enter John Huston, Merchant and Ivory, John Travolta, John Voight, Elton John, David Bowie, Joan Didion and Armistead Maupin.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JAMES FENTONSubtitled 'An education in the twenties', this work blends autobiography and fiction to describe the inner life of a writer evolving from precocious public school boy to Cambridge drop-out at large in London's Bohemia.

Christopher Isherwood settled in California in 1939 and spent the war years writing for Hollywood, but by 1945 he had all but ceased to write fiction and even abandoned his habit of keeping a diary. Looking back from the 1970s, Isherwood recreated these years from personal memories to form a remarkably honest mixture of private and social history.

After a chance encounter on a train the English teacher William Bradshaw starts a close friendship with the mildly sinister Arthur Norris. Norris is a man of contradictions; First published in 1933 Mr Norris Changes Trains piquantly evokes the atmosphere of Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.

Christopher Isherwood gives fascinating insight into pre-war Berlin. MR NORRIS CHANGES TRAINSThe first of Christopher Isherwood's classic 'Berlin' novels, this portrays the encounter and growing friendship between young William Bradshaw and the urbane and mildly sinister Mr Norris.