Adieu à Berlin (Goodbye to Berlin) est le chef-d'oeuvre de Christopher Isherwood. Dans ce roman, le narrateur, un jeune Anglais, loue une chambre chez l'affectueuse, envahissante et pittoresque fraulein Schroeder. Il y fait la connaissance de Sally Bowles, jeune chanteuse de cabarets aux ongles peints en vert, qui s'imagine qu'elle deviendra une star. Ils seront amis avec une riche héritière juive, une famille d'ouvriers et le couple de garçons Peter et Otto. S'ensuit la chronique joyeuse et scandaleuse du Berlin de la République de Weimar, peu à peu menacée par le parti nazi dont l'insolence et la brutalité augmentent de jour en jour. Adieu Berlin a inspiré le célèbre film cabaret de Bob Fosse avec Lisa Minnelli en 1972. Traduit de l'Anglais par Ludmila Savitzky. Publication concomitante dans les Cahiers rouges de M. Norris change de train, du même auteur.
Christopher Isherwood Livres
Christopher Isherwood fut un romancier, dramaturge, scénariste, auteur d'autobiographies et diariste dont l'œuvre explora souvent des thèmes tels que l'homosexualité et l'identité personnelle dans des périodes historiques tumultueuses. Ses années de formation à Berlin, marquées par une découverte de soi naissante et le paysage politique des années 1930, ont fourni la matière de ses écrits les plus célèbres. La prose d'Isherwood se distingue par son acuité d'observation et son examen sans fard des relations humaines. Plus tard dans sa vie, il se consacra à l'autobiographie et aux thèmes spirituels, notamment sa conversion à l'hindouisme.







Le lion et son ombre
- 225pages
- 8 heures de lecture
Diaries - 2: The Sixties
Diaries Volume Two, 1960-1969
This second volume of Christopher Isherwood's remarkable diaries begins on his fifty-sixth birthday, capturing the transition from the fifties to a decade of social and sexual revolution. Isherwood takes readers through the bohemian landscape of Southern California, the liberated atmosphere of London, the vibrant cosmopolitanism of New York, and the rugged Australian outback. He chronicles his spiritual quest guided by his Hindu guru and shares the emotional complexities of his relationship with American painter Don Bachardy, who is thirty years his junior and navigating his own artistic path. The diaries are filled with sharp gossip and psychological insights about cultural icons of the era, including Francis Bacon, Richard Burton, and Mick Jagger. However, they are most revealing about Isherwood himself—his literary works, film writing, college teaching, and romantic entanglements. He seamlessly connects diverse topics, from Beckett to Brando and the opening of "Cabaret" to a detailed analysis of Gide. The backdrop includes significant political and historical events: the Cold War anxieties, Gagarin's spaceflight, the Vietnam War, and the Summer of Love. Isherwood, known for his prophetic portrayals of a morally bankrupt Europe before World War II, offers an unparalleled chronicle of the decade that profoundly influences contemporary life.
Isherwood's lectures on writing and writers, now all available for the first time In the 1960s, Christopher Isherwood gave an unprecedented series of lectures at California universities about his life and work. During this time Isherwood, who would liberate the memoir and become the founding father of modern gay writing, spoke openly for the first time about his craft--on writing for film, theater, and novels--and spirituality. Isherwood on Writing brings these free-flowing, wide-ranging public addresses together to reveal a distinctly American Isherwood at the top of his form. This updated edition contains the long-lost conclusion to the second lecture, published here for the first time, including its discussion of A Single Man, his greatest novel, and A Meeting by the River, his final novel.
Liberation Diaries, Volume Three
- 928pages
- 33 heures de lecture
In the final volume of Christopher Isherwood's diaries, he reflects on aging with humor and curiosity. He explores Hinduism, writes his last works, and engages with the vibrant art scenes of the 1970s alongside his partner, Don Bachardy. The narrative captures a rich tapestry of cultural encounters amid significant historical events.
Isherwood anthology that include two complete novels, PRATER VIOLET and A SINGLE MAN, and excerpts from several other works including THE BERLIN STORIES, which was the inspiration for the popular musical and film CABARET.
The Animals
- 528pages
- 19 heures de lecture
Don, whose portraits of London theatreland were making his name, attends the world premiere of The Innocents with Truman Capote and afterwards dines with Deborah Kerr and the rest of the cast, spends weekends with Tennessee Williams, Cecil Beton, or the Earl and Countess of Harewood, and tours Egypt and Greece with a new love interest.
The Sixties
- 800pages
- 28 heures de lecture
This second volume of Christopher Isherwood's remarkable diaries opens on his fifty-sixth birthday as the fifties give way to the decade of social and sexual revolution. číst celé
Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1
- 1104pages
- 39 heures de lecture
In spare, luminous prose these diaries describe Isherwood's search for a new life in California; his work as a screenwriter in Hollywood, his pacifism during World War II and his friendships with such gifted artists and intellectuals as Garbo, Chaplin, Thomas Mann, Charles Laughton, Gielgud, Olivier, Richard Burton and Aldous Huxley.
Diaries Volume One: 1939-1960
- 1102pages
- 39 heures de lecture
At times pious, at times profane but always unashamedly honest, "The Diaries of Christopher Isherwood" provide an inside look at the life and times of one of the most celebrated writers of the century. Chronicling Isherwood's life from 1939, when he emigrated to the United States, until 1960, these entries cover some of the most turbulent years of his career and give readers unprecedented insight into the major turning points in his life. Here, Isherwood relates the spiritual crisis he went through as World War II began, his discipleship (along with Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard) with the Hindu monk Swami Prabhavananda and his decision to become a pacifist. Here also are his accounts of his intense social life in Hollywood, his career as a screenwriter and his many sexual affairs. Readers will be particularly fascinated by his revealing anecdotes and gossip about the literary greats (such as W. H. Auden, Thomas Mann, E. M. Forster, and Tennessee Williams) and movie stars (such as Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Laurence Olivier) of the time.

