Lilly and Her Slave

Previously unpublished stories by the bestselling author of Alone in Berlin.


In September 1925 Hans Fallada handed himself in to the police. Not yet a bestselling author, Fallada had repeatedly embezzled funds to finance his alcohol and morphine addictions. Desperate to escape his demons, he sought a prison cell.

Now court documents from Fallada's imprisonment have recently been rediscovered, and with them a never-before seen story collection. Peopled by complex characters at odds with society, Fallada's stories tackle hitherto taboo topics such as rape and abortion, and explore the lives of women and male outsiders.

These stories reveal to a new generation of readers Fallada's immense gifts and his intense inner battles.

About the Author

Hans Fallada (1893-1947) was the pen name of German author Rudolf Ditzen, whose books were international bestsellers on a par with those of his countrymen Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. He opted to stay in Germany when the Nazis came to power, and eventually had a nervous breakdown when he was put under pressure to write anti-Semitic books. He was cast into a Nazi insane asylum, where he secretly wrote The Drinker.

Immediately after the war he wrote his last two novels, The Nightmare and Alone in Berlin, but he died before either book could be published.

Alexandra Roesch is a bicultural, bilingual freelance translator based in Frankfurt, Germany. An experienced translator of fiction and nonfiction, she has an MA in translation from the University of Bristol and was longlisted for the 2018 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize.