Party in the Blitz

The rediscovery of an important manuscipt, continuing earlier chapters of Elias Canetti's life story (The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear and The Play of the Eyes), and detailing his time in England during and after World War II.

Elias Canetti has written wonderfully poetic accounts of his childhood and youth, in as many languages as countries, and of his life in Vienna in the 1930s. The present book, published posthumously, covers the years of emigration in England when Canetti composed his masterpiece CROWDS AND POWER and led a most turbulent life.

In later years Canetti made several attempts to tackle this, his fourth autobiographical volume, but in the end did not dare publish so many plain truths from a not-too-distant past. Now the treasure is brought to light. Canetti's sparkling prose illuminates noblemen who lose their fortunes and poverty-stricken emigrants with none to lose, vain poets and glamorous painters, a bigoted priest and a worldly-wise street-sweeper. He also writes, with astonishing frankness, about his affair with the then still unknown writer Iris Murdoch.

In an informed afterword, Jeremy Adler, London-based literary scholar, and son of H.G. Adler, personally acquainted with Canetti since his childhood, establishes contexts that allow us to look behind the scenes.

"It is time that I turn to England again, for I sense how these memories gradually fade, and it would be a pity if nothing remained of forty years in that country."