Description

A GERMAN CLASSIC FROM A FORGOTTEN AUTHOR

Schlump is seventeen, a romantic, a chancer and a dreamer. It’s 1915 so naturally he volunteers for war. In France he is assigned an administrative position in a small town and has a marvellous time. But when he gets to the trenches, where death and mindless destruction are the everyday, he starts to understand something about war. Funny, brutal and charming, here’s the First World War from the perspective of the inimitable Schlump.

Publisher Review

"A brutal, devastatingly honest story of the trenches that somehow retains its humour, and its poetry, to the end" * Independent, Best Books of 2015 * "An unusual, original and charming addition to that great army of WWI novels" * The Times * "A century after the Great War, Schlump reappears in Jamie Bulloch's excellent new translation and the extraordinary story of its rediscovery probably warrants a novel of its own...exceptional" * Independent * "One of the great First World War novels, about a German soldier in a French village, who falls in love with it. It's full of criticism of how the war was conducted by Germany, so when Hitler came in, it was burnt." -- Michael Morpurgo * Daily Mail * "The best of German war books so far" -- J. B. Priestley