About the book: 1996 / A novel under this title (1939) is a page of classic English literature unknown to the Russian-speaking reader, which caused a lot of noise in the 30s and 40s thanks to creative innovations and frankness with which the author, one of the representatives of the “lost generation,” narrated the morals of Berlin (and, more broadly, Western European) artistic bohemia. Close to the form of a film script, K. Isherwood’s impressionistic prose captured the stormy reality of the era of Hitler’s rise to power: the confusion of the intelligentsia, Jewish pogroms, shocking freedom of morals, including same-sex love affairs, with a boldness unheard of in either English or American literature of that time. The plot core of the story is the life of a young Englishman who makes a living by teaching English; the most colorful and vibrant character is the singer and girl without certain occupations Sally Bowles, not burdened by ideas about sinfulness and vice, the prototype of the heroine of the famous Bob Fosse film “Cabaret» (1972).