Two Women and a Poisoning

Product Description

What would it take for a woman to poison her husband? Young couple Elli and Link have been married for a year when Elli meets Gretchen, and the two soon become friends. When Elli confides in her friend about the abuse she suffers at her husband's hands, they hatch a plan for Elli to escape. But when their efforts prove unsuccessful, the pair begin to discuss a more permanent solution to Elli's problem- poison.

Based on a famous murder trial which took place in Berlin in 1923, this short novel by the master of German modernism, Alfred D blin, explores questions of moral culpability and societal expectations which remain as relevant today as in the 1920s.What would it take for a woman to poison her husband? Young couple Elli and Link have been married for a year when Elli meets Gretchen, and the two soon become friends. When Elli confides in her friend about the abuse she suffers at her husband's hands, they hatch a plan for Elli to escape. But when their efforts prove unsuccessful, the pair begin to discuss a more permanent solution to Elli's problem- poison.

Based on a famous murder trial which took place in Berlin in 1923, this short novel by the master of German modernism, Alfred D blin, explores questions of moral culpability and societal expectations which remain as relevant today as in the 1920s.
Alfred D blin (1878-1957) was a German novelist, essayist and short-story writer. He was also a doctor, practising psychiatry in working-class Berlin, the setting of both his most famous novel, Berlin Alexanderplatz, and his true-crime tale Two Women and A Poisoning. In 1933, D blin was forced to flee Germany because of his Jewish origins and lived in France and the USA for the duration of the war.

Imogen Taylor is a translator who has lived in Berlin since 2001. Her translations include Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself by Florian Huber, Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit and The Truth and Other Lies by Sasha Arango.