Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life is a major literary biography of one of the iconic cultural figures of the twentieth century, whose achievements are viewed alongside Picasso's and Wagner's. Offering a fresh reassessment of the man and the artist, this is the first significant biography of Brecht to present a balanced account of his life.

This is an immensely important new biography of one of the most controversial and inspiring figures of European modernism. Parker has a profound knowledge of the archival record and brings his subject alive with a wealth of fascinating detail, rising above the old ideologically blinkered debates. Brecht emerges as a flawed and troubled man, but equally as a literary artist and cultural commentator of extraordinary breadth, with as much to say to us global citizens of the twenty-first century as he had to his own contemporaries. -- Tom Kuhn, Fellow of St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, UK Parker offers an eminently readable account of a life that not only fascinates on its own terms but illuminates the contradictions of the many worlds Brecht inhabited. -- David Barnett, Reader in Drama, University of Sussex, UK and author of Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance and A History of the Berliner Ensemble Nobody perhaps has gone further than Stephen Parker in trusting the conviction that biographical detail - including somatic detail -- can open up new dimensions of insight into historical moments and the lives through which they exist. The result is a book, written with sympathy and passion, that reveals an unknown, highly complex personality behind the canonized image of the great Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht. breathtaking. -- Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Albert Guerard Professor in Literature, Stanford University, USA At last, after twenty years of waiting, a new Brecht biography in English that can draw on post Cold War archival sources. Parker offers a weighty but smoothly written literary portrait - both empathetic and critical - of this major twentieth-century writer and thinker. -- Marc Silberman, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Stephen Parker is Henry Simon Professor of German at the University of Manchester and was Leverhulme Research Fellow (2009-12). His publications include Sinn und Form: The Anatomy of a Literary Journal, The Modern Restoration: Re-thinking German Literature 1930-1960 (both co-authored), Peter Huchel: A Literary Life in 20th-Century Germany and contributed to Brecht on Art and Politics.

Acknowledgements Introduction Prelude: Eugen Brecht Goes out to Play Part 1 Lyrical Awakening Part 2 Dramatic Iconoclast Part 3 Marxist Heretic Part 4 Chastened Survivor Part 5 Contentious Master Abbreviations Bibliography Index