As the current global recession stubbornly persists and financial experts around the world struggle to prevent further financial collapse, everyone has a theory about how to save the economy. But perhaps no idea that has been proffered is as radical or as unique as what Hugo Loetscher imagines in his novel "Noah." In this book, first published in German in 1967, the eponymous Old Testament hero fuels his local economy with a prescient plan to build the Ark.Though no one around him seriously believes in the coming flood, everyone is more than willing to do business with him: The people of...

Werner Braunig was once regarded as the great hope of East German literature until an extract from "Rummelplatz" was read before the East German censorship authorities in 1965, and fierce opposition summarily sealed its fate. The novel s sin? It painted an all too accurate picture of East German society.
"Rummelplatz," translated here by Samuel P. Willcocks, focuses on a notorious East German uranium mine, run by the Soviets and supplying the brotherland s nuclear program. Veterans, fortune seekers, and outsiders with tenuous family ties like narrator Peter Loose flock to the well-paying...