The Promised Land

Author: Remarque, Erich Maria, Hofmann, Michael

New York

Published on 29 February 2016 by Vintage Publishing (Vintage Classics) in the United Kingdom.

The final, previously unpublished novel by the author of All Quiet on the Western Front - a dreamlike, powerfully moving account of an emigrant's experience of New York during World War II.

From the detention centre on Ellis Island, Ludwig Somner looks across a small stretch of water to the glittering towers of New York, which whisper seductively of freedom after so many years of wandering through a perlious, suffering Europe. Remarque's final novel, left unfinished at his death, tells of the precarious life of the refugee – life lived in hotel lobbies, on false passports, the strange, ill-assorted refugee community held together by an unspeakable past. For Somner, each new luxury - ice cream served in drugstores, bright shop windows, art, a new suit, a new romance - has a bittersweet edge. Memories of war and inhumanity continue to resurface even in this peaceful promised land.