The inspiration for the stage and screen musical Cabaret and for the play I Am a Camera, this novel, first published in 1939, remains one of the most powerful of the century, a haunting evocation of the gathering storm of the Nazi terror. Told in a series of wry, detached and impressionistic vignettes, it is an unforgettable portrait of bohemian Berlin — a city and a world on the very brink of ruin. (New Directions)