Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Döblin It is still the eighteenth

It is still the eighteenth of November

which spans the full arc of Chekhov's career and includes a number of tales translated into English for the first time

Both are now adults

and for whom the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair

Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Döblin It is still the eighteenthFranz Biberkopf is back on the streets of Berlin. Determined to go straight after a stint in prison, he finds himself thwarted by an unpredictable external agency that looks an awful lot like fate. Cheated, humiliated, thrown from a moving car; embroiled in an underworld of pimps, thugs, drunks and prostitutes, Franz picks himself up over and over again until one day he is struck a monstrous blow which might just prove his final downfall. Original