The Tango Player

Set in 1968 Leipzig, Christoph Hein's novel is the story of Dallow, an apolitical academic who has just returned to civilian life after serving twenty-one months in prison. His crime: he was the substitute piano player in a student cabaret in which seditious verses were sung. Dallow returns to a life in of loveless sex, police harassment, and brutality, revealing how a corrupt system perverts all human interaction, and how lives are ruined by malicious caprice.

"Published amid the death throes of the German Democratic Republic, Hein's work is a skeptical and troubled inquiry into the nature of freedom." --New York Times Book Review

"An ingenious and provocative novel." --Times Literary Supplement