Description

A Financial Times ‘Book to Read in 2023’

1930s Europe – as the Roaring Twenties wind down and the world rumbles towards war, the great minds of the time have other concerns.

Jean-Paul Sartre waits anxiously in a Parisian cafe for his first date with no-show Simone de Beauvoir. Marlene Dietrich slips from her loveless marriage into the dive bars of Berlin. Father and son Thomas and Klaus Mann clash over each other’s homosexuality. And Vladimir Nabokov lovingly places a fresh-caught butterfly at the end of Vera’s bed. Little do they all know, the book burning will soon begin.

Love in a Time of Hate skilfully interweaves some of the greatest love stories of the 1930s with the darkening backdrop of fascism in Europe, in an irresistible journey into the past that brings history and its actors to vivid life.

Publisher Review

Florian Illies's whirling cultural history, Love in a Time of Hate, captures an era of unmatched hedonism ... there's the thrill of discovery on every page -- Jasper Rees * Daily Telegraph * A brilliantly conceived and uniquely different cultural history of the 1930s, written with confident, alluring poise. Fascinating and revelatory -- William Boyd, author * Trio * Partly as a result of the book's organising conceit, and Illies's often arch prose style, Love in a Time of Hate achieves something that is really rather impressive - turning the great moral dramas of the 20th century into breathless melodrama. -- John Maier * The Times * Love in a Time of Hate invites us to consider that history is as much an accretion of small gestures as it is a catalogue of battles and speeches. At once intimate and epic, this dazzling book illuminates the human desire to seek connection and coherence as the world descends into chaos. A brilliant and imaginative tour de force -- Rebecca Donner, author * All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler * Set against the relentless rise of Nazi terror, this ingenious narrative evokes the 1930s through the loves, foibles and tragedies of the cultural elite. Strikingly original, utterly absorbing. -- Julia Boyd, author * Travellers in the Third Reich * Please do read this book - it is gorgeous. I learned so many new things about love, art and the horror of history -- Ferdinand von Schirach, author * The Collini Case * This is candid, unsparing and gripping social history viewed through the prism of two- and three-person relationships - simultaneously disenchanting and endearing. A bravura performance -- Harald Jahner, author * Aftermath * Praise for Florian Illies: 'Illies is as astute a researcher as he is an observer of the zeitgeist * Guardian * A vivid, richly textured book that chronicles a world crackling with talent, energy and foreboding * Financial Times * An absolute gem of a book * Observer * Thorough and fascinating * Time Out *