Jospeh Roth is a modern master of the laconic, emblematic narrative - an artist responding to the madness of inter-war Europe with an unsentimental humanism. His prose is quick, lucid and ironic; his fictions read like realist fables. Beneath these polished surfaces there are darker currents - of violence, hatred, racism and personal loss - that cannot be ignored. Granta Books here presents Roth's collected stories and novellas in new translations by the poet Michael Hofmann. They include 'Fallermayr the Stationmaster' and 'The Bust of the Emperor', bitter comedies of the last days of the Hapsburgs; 'Strawberries', the story of a small town in Galicia; and many other astonishing shorter fictions.