Illusions (Faber Editions)

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Product details

  • ISBN 9780571396580
  • Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 27 Aug 2026
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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'The rediscovery of this lost classic will shift perceptions of German literature in the English speaking world. Mercurial, seductive, smart and startling.' - Megan Nolan

Four office workers, one unforgettable weekend - this shimmering lost German classic unveils the hidden lives inside every employee.

Welcome to the Wellis Corporation. Twenty-three storeys of shimmering glass cubicles, rattling typewriters, spiraling corridors: a corporate kingdom with its own neon light.

Across the glittering panes, the acrobatic window cleaner swoops and dives, or pauses, still as a gargoyle, seeing things that nobody else sees.

Over one weekend, we follow four employees into their private worlds. An ageing secretary; a translator in a mid-life-crisis; a once-glamorous typist; and a lovelorn trainee.

Together, they reveal the illusions we live by - in the workplace, in the home and in our own mind's eye.

Lost for decades since it was first published in Germany in 1959, introduced by Megan Nolan and in a hypnotic new translation by Rob Madole, this crystalline debut novel by a pioneering female writer rewrites German literary history.

Ruth Rehmann (1922-2016) was born in Siegburg, the daughter of a priest. She worked as a journalist, violinist, chanson singer, and press officer for the Indian Embassy in Bonn before moving to a remote Bavarian farm to write her debut novel, Illusions - which lost to Günter Grass' The Tin Drum for the 1958 Group 47 prize. She wrote four further novels as well as radio plays and short stories. In 1983, she ran as a Green Party candidate for a seat in the Bundestag.

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