Global bestseller was turned down 60 years ago by British publisher

The story of how Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin was rejected in 1948 has emerged in a letter found in Jerusalem

Dalya Alberge The Observer, Sunday 6 March 2011

A novel that became a worldwide publishing phenomenon more than 60 years after it was first published in Germany was turned down by a British publisher in 1948, according to a rejection letter found in Jerusalem.

British readers had to wait until 2009 for the first translation of Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin, a masterpiece about extreme fear under a dictatorship. It came out in Germany in 1947, weeks after the author's death at 53, following a life blighted by mental illness and morphine.

Penguin has sold more than 300,000 paperback copies of the book in 13 months, a sensational figure for foreign literature. In the US, where it appears under the title Every Man Dies Alone, sales have topped 200,000, while the book has been translated into 20 different languages. A major German feature film is also in the pipeline.

However, Putnam & Company, bought by Penguin in 1996, failed to see its potential, even though it had published Fallada's books in the 1930s.

Full story at The Observer.