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------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: Margot Weale <[log in to unmask]> BRECHT ON ART AND POLITICS Edited and translated by TOM KUHN and STEVE GILES 20 March 2003 Hardback £25.00 ISBN: 0413758907 The first single-volume anthology of Brecht's writings on both art and politics, never previously available in translation. 'A man with one theory is lost. He must have several, four, many! He must stuff them in his pockets like newspapers, always the most recent, you can live well between them, you can dwell easily between the theories.' BERTOLT BRECHT This volume of new translations extends our image of one of the literary giants of the twentieth century. These essays, criticism, speeches, diaries and journalism represent the work of a uniquely illuminating, entertaining and thought-provoking commentator on culture, aesthetics and politics. Across four decades of economic turmoil, war and social upheaval, they offer an extraordinary insight into the concerns of a writer for whom art and politics were inseparable. From 1914 when Brecht was a teenager, through his long years of exile from Nazi Germany to his controversial post-war residence in East Berlin, the book covers the whole span of Brecht's life and thought. Often contradictory, but always engaged, his writings are filled with contentious and amusing polemics as well as dark poetic insights. He rails against fellow artists and movements - whether Dadaists, Expressionists or Formalists - mercilessly tears down Nazi rhetoric and waxes lyrical about detective novels. BRECHT ON ART AND POLITICS reveals a formidable genius, radically engaged with the whole breadth of social, political and cultural activity of his time. Each section begins with a short essay by the editors introducing and summarising Brecht's thought in the relevant year. TOM KUHN is lecturer in German at St Hugh's College Oxford. He is the General Editor (with John Willett) of the Methuen edition of Brecht in English and has published widely on Brecht, German exile and German drama. He is also co-editor of Empedocles' Shoe: Essays on Brecht's Poetry (Methuen 2001). STEVE GILES is reader in German studies and Critical Theory at the University of Nottingham. His books include: Bertolt Brecht and Critical Theory: Marxism, Modernity and the 'Threepenny Lawsuit' (Peter Lang 1998) and Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays (Rodopi 1998). Also available from Methuen: BRECHT ON THEATRE and BRECHT ON FILM AND RADIO For further information, contact Margot Weale, tel 020 7798 1608 [log in to unmask]