4.5
All Quiet on the Western Front
ByPublisher Description
“[A] gripping new translation.” —Samantha Power, from the Foreword
The novel that has done more than any other to inspire opposition to war, in a major new translation that captures its undiminished literary power for a new generation
With a Foreword by Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling war correspondent, human rights advocate, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
A Penguin Classics Hardcover
Galvanized by youthful idealism and patriotic fervor, nineteen-year-old Paul Bäumer and his schoolmates enlist in the German army at the onset of World War I. But soon their dreams of heroism shatter beneath the first shells of the bombardment, as they find on the battle front not the glory they were promised but savage brutality.
The most influential war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front has sold more than twenty million copies, been translated into more than fifty languages, and been adapted into three acclaimed films. In his Nobel Prize lecture, Bob Dylan included it among three books that have left an impression on him since elementary school: “This is a book where you lose your childhood, your faith in a meaningful world, and your concern for individuals. . . . I put this book down and closed it up. I never wanted to read another war novel again, and I never did.” In this brilliant new translation, the distinguished Harvard professor Maria Tatar draws on her lifelong engagement with German literature to give a new generation of readers an English version that comes closest to the lyrical tragedy of the 1929 original. It compels us to see with fresh eyes the abject horror of trench warfare, and to feel with a quickened heart the unbreakable bonds of friendship forged among Paul and his fellow soldiers as they fight not just for their country but also for their own survival. At a time when we are more divided than ever, Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel reminds us that enemy soldiers who’ve been demonized by the rhetoric of war actually have much in common, giving it the potential to generate principled outrage about the senselessness of war for another hundred years.
The novel that has done more than any other to inspire opposition to war, in a major new translation that captures its undiminished literary power for a new generation
With a Foreword by Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling war correspondent, human rights advocate, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
A Penguin Classics Hardcover
Galvanized by youthful idealism and patriotic fervor, nineteen-year-old Paul Bäumer and his schoolmates enlist in the German army at the onset of World War I. But soon their dreams of heroism shatter beneath the first shells of the bombardment, as they find on the battle front not the glory they were promised but savage brutality.
The most influential war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front has sold more than twenty million copies, been translated into more than fifty languages, and been adapted into three acclaimed films. In his Nobel Prize lecture, Bob Dylan included it among three books that have left an impression on him since elementary school: “This is a book where you lose your childhood, your faith in a meaningful world, and your concern for individuals. . . . I put this book down and closed it up. I never wanted to read another war novel again, and I never did.” In this brilliant new translation, the distinguished Harvard professor Maria Tatar draws on her lifelong engagement with German literature to give a new generation of readers an English version that comes closest to the lyrical tragedy of the 1929 original. It compels us to see with fresh eyes the abject horror of trench warfare, and to feel with a quickened heart the unbreakable bonds of friendship forged among Paul and his fellow soldiers as they fight not just for their country but also for their own survival. At a time when we are more divided than ever, Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel reminds us that enemy soldiers who’ve been demonized by the rhetoric of war actually have much in common, giving it the potential to generate principled outrage about the senselessness of war for another hundred years.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesAll Quiet on the Western Front Reviews
4.5
“I thoroughly enjoyed this book, although I can't give it more than a 4.25 ratinng for one reason only. First of all, let me start off by saying that I know the author was part of the war effort himself, and this book definitely takes an anti-war stance as a result of his experience within it, which is totally understandable.
But this book, which is written in the first-person present-tense perspective, definitely feels like a recount of events from the perspective of somebody who's 10 to 20 years removed from the conflict, rather than the firsthand account of somebody living in the moment. Recognizing that he's only 20 years old, he writes in such flowery, reminiscent, and deeply introspective prose that it weirdly takes me out of the action. Because the whole time, I'm thinking: "a 20-year-old doesn't think like this!" I totally understand being hardened by the war and growing up quickly, but that could be expressed differently.
My immersion in an otherwise amazing, beautifully written book was broken many times. I get the author's intent, and it's such a great read that it doesn't RUIN the experience for me, but it is a major critique I have. Otherwise, would be a 10/10!!”
“This is a beautifully written story about war and the truth about what it does to people and country. He writes grueling images of damage both to land and to man. Sends chills down the spine at times. It’s not hard to see why it was one of the first books banned by the Third Reich. It shows that the day comes in which country no longer provides answers and that independent thinking can change it all.”
About Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) wrote his most famous novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, based on his experience as a soldier in the German army in World War I; it became an instant bestseller upon its publication in 1929. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they burned his books and, in 1938, revoked his citizenship. Remarque had already resettled in Switzerland; in 1939 he left Europe for the United States, never to return to the country of his birth. All Quiet on the Western Front has been translated into more than fifty languages and adapted into three acclaimed movies. It is the most widely read novel of World War I.
Maria Tatar (translator) is the John L. Loeb Research Professor of Folklore & Mythology and Germanic Languages & Literatures, Emerita, and a senior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. She is the author, editor, and translator of many acclaimed books, among them The Heroine with 1001 Faces, Lustmord: Sexual Violence in Weimar Germany, and, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the NAACP Image Award–winning Annotated African American Folktales. She served as Harvard’s first Dean for the Humanities and is a frequent contributor to the BBC, NPR, and other media outlets. Born in Pressath, Germany, and raised in Illinois, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Samantha Power (foreword) is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning book “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide and the New York Times bestselling memoir The Education of an Idealist. A former war correspondent, she served as the US ambassador to the United Nations, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and a member of President Obama’s cabinet. She is a professor of practice at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School.
Maria Tatar (translator) is the John L. Loeb Research Professor of Folklore & Mythology and Germanic Languages & Literatures, Emerita, and a senior fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. She is the author, editor, and translator of many acclaimed books, among them The Heroine with 1001 Faces, Lustmord: Sexual Violence in Weimar Germany, and, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the NAACP Image Award–winning Annotated African American Folktales. She served as Harvard’s first Dean for the Humanities and is a frequent contributor to the BBC, NPR, and other media outlets. Born in Pressath, Germany, and raised in Illinois, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Samantha Power (foreword) is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning book “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide and the New York Times bestselling memoir The Education of an Idealist. A former war correspondent, she served as the US ambassador to the United Nations, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and a member of President Obama’s cabinet. She is a professor of practice at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School.
Other books by Erich Maria Remarque
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