Now in paperback, the long-awaited volume of Brecht's classic plays from the 1930s
Volume 4 of Brecht's Collected Plays contains works from the 1930s, straddling fateful years in German political and cultural history - as well as in Brecht's own life. Round Heads and Pointed Heads, based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, is a powerful political allegory on Nazi racial policy and conditions in the Germany Brecht had to leave in 1933. The Trial of Lucullus, a starkly pacifist text originally written in response to a commission from Swedish radio, portrays the Roman general tried by the Underworld for his military triumphs. Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, unique in Brecht's work, consists of some thirty short scenes of life under the Nazis between 1933 and 1938, designed for use by groups in exile. Se