About the Book
First published in this country in 1937, and long unavailable English, Confession of a Murderer is a subtle, profoundly moral masterpiece by one of the greatest European novelists of the century, and a terrifying insight into the insidious, corrupting powers of jealousy, ambition and unrequited love. An exile in Paris since the Revolution, the narrator tells of how he grew up, the son of a forester, in the knowledge that his real father was the dissolute, powerful Prince Krapothin; of his futile, begging visit to the Prince in his enormous white place by the sea near Odessa, and his obsessive hatred for Kropotkin's legitimate son; of his wretched, destructive passion for Lutetia, the heartless Paris mannequin; of his enrolment in the Ochrana, the Tsar's dreaded secret police, and the betrayal of the innocent in the cause of his twin obsessions; of the devilish, ubiquitous Jeno Lakatos-dandified, limping, reeking of violets, the emissary from Hell who leads him into the realms of the eternally lost. Vivid, compelling, combining a detailed evocation of prerevolutionary Russia with the moral truths of a parable, Confession of a Murderer is a supreme embodiment of Joseph Roth's belief that' aman's private life, simple humanity, is more important, greater, more tragic, than all the public affairs in the world.'

About the Author
Joseph Roth (1894-1939) was brought up on the eastern frontiers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; he spent time in Russia during the First World Was and later as a journalist. He left Germany in 1933 and settled in France, where he became a central figure in the intellectual opposition to the Nazis. His novels include Job: The story of a Simple Man and The Emperor's Tomb and The Radetzky March.