Έριχ Κέστνερ

Emil and the Detectives is a 1929 novel for children set mainly in Berlin, by the German writer Erich Kästner and illustrated by Walter Trier. It was Kästner's first major success, the only one of his pre-1945 works to escape Nazi censorship, and remains his best-known work, and has been translated into at least 59 …

Originally published in German in 1931 and in an expurgated English translation in 1932, this novel is the tale of Jacob Fabian, a Berlin advertising copywriter doomed in the context of economic, ethical, and political collapse by his characteristic mixture of detachment and decency. Fabian is a middle-of-the-road …