In der Berliner Illustrierten erscheint 1929 erstmals Vicki Baums berhmtestes Werk Menschen im Hotel als Fortsetzungsroman: Eine Hand voll Mnner und Frauen kommt fr kurze Zeit im Grand Hotel zusammen. Zufllig, willkrlich und nur fr kurze Zeit verflechten sich ihre Wege, ihre tragischen Schicksale. Gleich zweimal verfilmt, zunchst mit Greta Garbo, spter mit Heinz Rhmann und Sonja Ziemann, gilt der Roman heute als Evergreen.

Set against the backdrop of the Dutch invasion of Bali just over a century ago, and the resulting "mass suicides" of the Balinese royalty, the moving story unfolds of the peasant Pak and his family and friends, and the tragedy that is their shared fate.

Written within living memory of the bloody events called the puputan (the "ending"), Love and Death in Bali is the story of a passionate yet peaceful and deeply spiritual people who defy the Dutch imperial forces through an act that would bring them certain death--and certain rebirth.

The looting of a Chinese...

A grand hotel in the center of 1920s Berlin serves as a microcosm of the modernworld in Vicki Baum s celebrated novel, a Weimar-era bestseller that retains all itsverve and luster today. Among the guests of the hotel is Dr. Otternschlag, a WorldWar I veteran whose face has been sliced in half by a shell. Day after day he emergesto read the paper in the lobby, discreetly inquiring at the desk if the letter he s beenawaiting for years has arrived. Then there is Grusinskaya, a great ballerina now fightinga losing battle not so much against age as against her fear of it, and Gaigern, asleek...