1913 : the year before the storm / Florian Illies ; translated by Shaun Whiteside and Jamie Lee Searle.

London : The Clerkenwell Press, 2014.

270 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 20 cm

Translated from the German.
This translation originally published: 2013.
Includes bibliographical references.

The stuffy conventions of the 19th century are receding into the past, and 1913 heralds a new age of unlimited possibility. Kafka falls in love; Louis Armstrong learns to play the trumpet; a young seamstress called Coco Chanel opens her first boutique; and new drugs like cocaine usher in an age of decadence. Yet everywhere there is the premonition of ruin - the number 13 is omnipresent, and in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Trieste, artists take the omen and act as if there were no tomorrow, their brief coincidences of existence telling of a darker future. This is the story of the year that shaped the last century.

9781846689611 (pbk)

940.2'88
940.288

English
German

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