Alfred Döblin

Alfred Döblin (1878–1957) was a German novelist and essayist, and one of the most important German-speaking writers of the twentieth century. His masterpiece Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929), a montage of the Berlin underworld following a discharged prisoner's attempt to go straight, is a founding text of literary modernism.

A physician trained in neurology and a socialist who opposed the First World War, Döblin was forced into exile by the Nazis in 1933. His montage-cinematic techniques, underclass dialect and tragic-burlesque vision made him central to Weimar literature, and his great novel was later adapted into Fassbinder's legendary television series.