NEW STATESMAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015

'Sublime ... it inspires a kind of evangelical cult passion among its devotees' Simon Schama

'Roth is Austria's Chekhov' William Boyd

Strauss's Radetzky March, signature tune of one of Europe's most powerful regimes, presides over Joseph Roth's account of three generations of the Trotta family in the years preceding the Austro-Hungarian collapse in 1918. Grandfather, son and grandson are equally dependent on the empire: the first for his enoblement; the second for the civil virtues that make him a meticulous servant of an administration whose failure he can neither comprehend nor survive; the third for the family standards of conduct which he cannot attain but against which he is too enfeebled to rebel.

The Radetzky March follows the rise and demise of the Trotta dynasty through three generations, as their faith in the empire disintegrates amid doomed love affairs, gambling, 180 Proof liquor and the shattering arrival of the First World War.

About the Author
Joseph Roth (Author)
Joseph Roth was born in 1894 into a Jewish family living in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and now split between Poland and Ukraine. He became a successful journalist and travelled widely, eventually becoming best-known for his novels The Radetzky March (also in Penguin Modern Classics), The Emperor's Tomb and The Legend of the Holy Drinker . He died in Paris in 1939.



Reviews
Roth is Austria's Chekhov -- William Boyd
One of the greatest novels written in the last century -- Allan Massie
One of the most readable, poignant, and superb novels in twentieth-century German: it stands with the best of Thomas Mann, Alfred Doeblin, and Robert Musil. Roth was a cultural monument of Galician Jewry: ironic, compassionate, perfectly pitched to his catastrophic era -- Harold Bloom
A masterpiece . . . The totality of Joseph Roth's work is no less than a tragedie humaine achieved in the techniques of modern fiction -- Nadine Gordimer
The best novel is a book that, to my shame, I have only just read. Visiting Vienna earlier in the year, I realised how little I knew about the Austro-Hungarian empire. So I read Joseph Roth's 1932 book The Radetzky March (Penguin Classics) and, as soon as I finished reading it, I read it all over again. -- Chris Patten * New Statesman *



Book Information
ISBN 9780141393421
Author Joseph Roth
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 269g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 21mm