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Once a Jailbird

Once a Jailbird

Summary

For Willi Kufult, prison life means staying out of trouble, keeping his cell clean, snagging a precious piece of tobacco - and dreaming of the day of his release.

Then he gets out.

As Willi tries to make a new life for himself in Hamburg, finding a job and even love, he still cannot escape his past. Gradually he becomes sucked into a world of drink, desperation and deceit, and with one terrible act, he is ensnared in a noose of his own making...

Hans Fallada's dark and moving 1934 novel brilliantly describes a seedy criminal underworld of shabby lives and violent deeds, showing how our actions always catch up with us.

Reviews

  • Fallada is a unique novelist, a writer of great sweetness and charm whom historical circumstances forced to take an interest in violent turmoil
    Philip Hensher, Independent

About the author

Hans Fallada

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