Promotional Information

Originally published in 1932 and banned by the Nazis one year later, Blood Brothers follows a gang of young boys bound together by unwritten rules and mutual loyalty

About the Author

Ernst Haffner was a journalist and social worker. His only known novel Blood Brothers was published to wide acclaim in 1932, before it was banned by the Nazis one year later. In the 1940s, all records of Haffner disappeard. His fate during the Second World War remains unknown.

Reviews

An enthralling and significant novel, authentic in its gritty documentary detail... This raw honesty, along with Michael Hofmann’s masterly translation... makes the book so contemporary and vital
*Financial Times*

An astonishing novel, every bit as astonishing in a different way as Fallada's Alone in Berlin, and deserves to have the same success
*Scotsman*

The characters are engaging, and multidimensional. You care what happens to them
*Wall Street Journal*

Like a karate chop: hard and direct, but true
*Der Spiegel*

A real discovery
*Literarische Welt*

An enjoyable and worthwhile read, which I heartily recommend
*Nudge*

not only a good read, but an important piece of literature
*Bookmunch*

Michael Hofmann’s translation eloquently conveys the pungent fragility of life on the Berlin streets
*New Statesman*

The staccato beat of Haffner’s short and concise narrative arches, deftly rendered into English by Michael Hofmann’s typically dexterous translation, is never anything but gripping… Had Blood Brothers been rediscovered earlier, it should have found its rightful place next to Erich Kästner’s Emil and the Detectives and Fritz Lang’s film M: a City Looks for a Murderer.
*New Statesman*

His novel thoroughly deserves its second life.
*Guardian*