Oskar Maria Graf modestly described himself as a provincial writer, but his stories, though rooted in his native Bavaria, have a universal appeal. He fled from Germany in 1933 and continued writing in New York. His fatherland, he said, was the German language.
We Are Prisoners (A Confession) is an honest and blithe account of the author’s youth by Lake Starnberg, among alternative communities in Switzerland, in the bohemian world of pre-war Munich, as soldier, worker, writer and black marketeer, and finally through the turbulent days of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. Graf’s quirky literary style combines a self-deprecating and anarchic sense of humour, sympathy for the downtrodden and the Heimat genre of German culture.
“He behaves disgracefully and provokes laughter and disbelief, but in so doing, he wins our hearts.” Thomas Mann
