Writing in exile in the USA during the Second World War, Brecht borrowed from an ancient Chinese story-echoed in the Judgement of Solomon-in which two women both claim the same child. Brecht's subversion of this tale provides a parable which seems to say that resources should go to those in whose hands they will be most productive. Thanks to the rascally judge, Azdak, one of Brecht's most vivid creations, this story, at least, has a happy outcome. The child is entrusted to the peasant Grusha, who has loved it and nurtured it.
Originally intended for Broadway, this translation by James and Tania Stern (with verse translation by W. H. Auden) has been thoroughly revised, and the volume includes a full introduction and commentary by John Willett and Ralph Manheim.
Bertolt Brecht
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The Mother is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. It is based on Maxim Gorky’s 1906 novel of the same name. It was written in collaboration with Hanns Eisler, Slatan Dudow and Günter Weisenborn from 1930–31 in prose dialogue with unrhymed irregular free vers…
Schweik in the Second World War is a play by German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht. It was written by Brecht in 1943 while in exile in California, and is a sequel to the 1923 novel The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek. It is set in Prague and on the Russian Front during Wo…
In this savage and witty parable written in exile in 1941, Brecht recasts the rise of Hitler as a small-time Chicago gangster's takeover of the city's greengrocery trade. This prizewinning translation by Ralph Manheim skilfully captures the wide range of parody and pastiche in th…
Bertolt Brecht's work journals trace his years of exile (the period from 1934 to 1955) in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and America, as well as his return, via Switzerland, to East Berlin. These journals include his perceptive and at times polemical critiques of other writers and int…
"A major Brecht play in an outstanding translation with an expert and up-to-date preface." -- Eric Bentley "... a fine translation.... Jones has handled Brecht's meters with great skill." -- Choice
Considered by many to be one of Brecht's masterpieces, Galileo explores the question of a scientist's social and ethical responsibility, as the brilliant Galileo must choose between his life and his life's work when confronted with the demands of the Inquisition. Through the dram…
This volume offers a major selection of Bertolt Brecht's groundbreaking critical writing. Here, arranged in chronological order, are essays from 1918 to 1956, in which Brecht explores his definition of the Epic Theatre and his theory of alienation-effects in directing, acting, an…
Pip Broughton has translated the play for The Old Vic with reverence for Brecht, an understanding of the social relationships in the play and last but not least with a fine feeling for the language.
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