Acclaimed German novel banned by Nazis gets first English translation

Friedo Lampe’s At the Edge of Night was condemned in 1933 for its homoerotic story but has won growing renown for its magical realism

A novel banned by the Nazis in the 1930s for its homoerotic content is to appear in English for the first time next month.

At the Edge of Night, by Friedo Lampe, was first published in 1933. Set on a September evening on the waterfront of a German city, it is seen today as an early work of magical realism but was seized by the Nazis and pulled from sale. The regime objected to the novel’s inclusion of homoerotic content, and its depiction of an interracial liaison between a black man and a German woman. The book was placed on their list of “damaging and undesirable writings”.

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