Philip Hensher

The unpleasant truth about Joseph Roth

The Radetzky March is an incomparable work, but Roth himself was a liar, sponger and alcoholic who insulted everyone he met

Joseph Roth in the Place de l’Odéon, Paris, c.1925. [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 01 October 2022

Endless Flight is the first biography in English of the novelist Joseph Roth. This is very surprising, since Roth’s short, violent life traverses some of the most compelling episodes in 20th-century European history. He was a supremely elegant, intelligent and clear-sighted writer, despite living out of suitcases, in hotel rooms, always on the run. If most of his novels are flawed in one way or another, they are all interesting in others.

He also wrote what must be one of the dozen greatest European novels, The Radetzky March, translated at least three times into English since 1933. (We are now lucky to have Michael Hofmann’s superb, comprehensive translations, which perfectly convey Roth’s native skill in language.) He dropped out of sight, even in Germany, after his death in 1939, but the first collected German edition of the novels appeared in 1956, which brought him back into currency, and interest in him has grown steadily ever since.

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