Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life (Biography and Autobiography)

Parker's biography may well be definitive, to the extent that such a label is valid. He foregrounds Brecht's childhood illnesses and lifelong disabilities, using them as a telescope into the artist's trajectory away from romanticism towards a highly controlled format. The liveliness of Brecht's formative adolescence and early adulthood is brought into high relief. With the largely uncredited help of his numerous paramours, Brecht's cerebral approach to political theatre revolutionized the genre as it blossomed into an international movement. Parker emphasizes the ties between the writer-director's bourgeois background, his close relationship with his infirm mother, and his love of music, all of which contributed to his early renown as a poet. The end result of Parker's extensive research and analysis is a tremendously insightful and often entertaining biographical work, despite the amount of critical analysis.

A book full of insightful information about this fascinating man.There perhaps too much, we don't need to know every conversation he had , he said ,she said,etc.This is a minor point, about someone who revolutionized the theatre, who tried to go beyond just entertainment, to intellectualize and give a 'message'Brecht does not come across as a pleasant man, childish and selfish and very manipulative.However, this book is a fascinating insight into a genuine trail blazer of the arts.Well worth a read.

Very thorough review of Brecht's life, with detailed evidence and historical context. When I say there is some violence, it is the violent social environment of that time that Brecht had to go through, violence not generated by him. His biography tells us why he wrote the way he did at that particular moment, and transformed what was temporary into an all time lesson for humanity. Reading the book one feels as if one would have personally met this rather small man in physical terms, but a giant thinker, and a true revolutionary.

This is a large book with many hundreds of pages of small print, a result of extensive research. I think I would have preferred an overview in 100 pages or less.

This book makes you into a fly on the walls of Brecht’s entire life. It’s long and detailed with many collateral benefits especially concerning the politics surrounding him.

No comment on Brecht's treatment of women and children. The bio is extremely balanced, and incredibly complete. No unnecessary Red-baiting, either, which I thought was remarkable these days. The book made me want to read and to see more Brecht, with whose works I am only mildly familiar.

Lots of new material in a fascinating new portrait of one of the very great writers of the last century.

Excellent - well-written - much new information and insights - for Brecht devotees

Stephen Parker writes in a clear style and has a comprehensive knowledge of Brecht's life and times. His biography supersedes Klaus Volker's Brecht (the only other full biography of Brecht available in English, as far as I'm aware). Volker's biography was blinkered in its ideological obedience to the former East Germany's political line. Stephen Parker is even-handed and reveals Brecht's political and personal failings without excuses. This is quite a tome and I find dipping into it is the most rewarding approach for me. It could have benefited from a few photographs, but the depth of research is deserving of the highest praise.

... with the previous reviewer. Despite being a subject which could be very dense, the author has produced a book which is both scholarly and yet enjoyable to read. I can recommend it to Brecht specialists, but also to people generally interested in the events and literature of the 20th century.

This is a biography that reads like a good work of fiction. I got very engaged with the child brecht and watched him in my mind's eye developing as a writer and a thinker. Excellent

Having awaited this for some time, it is now an unalloyed pleasure (and relief) to be able to report that Stephen Parker has produced a superb book. Exhaustive, enthusiastic, critical, restrained, hugely scholarly, well-written with an admirably (and quite unusually) light touch, and thus eminently readable, this "Literary Life" can now comfortably sit right at the top of my large Brecht collection.“In the dark times/Will there also be singing?/Yes, there will also be singing./About the dark times.”This book sings...