Arno Schmidt

School for Atheists (Green Integer: El-e-phant 53) Arno Schmidt

Published originally in 1972, The School for Atheists is one of the great works of fiction by the renowned German novelist Arno Schmidt (1914-1979), whose masterpiece is Zettel's Traum, often compared to Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Complex in plot, the novel permits a more traditional reading than many of Schmidt's works. The year is 2014 in Tellingstedt near the Danish border. The city is now a reservation in which the few German survivors of the atomic war exist, overseen by the United States. A "story within a story/play within a play," the wonder of this book lies not only in its plot but in its intricacy of allusion and references to Jules Verne and Shakespeare.

Arno Schmidt is the author of Radio Dialogues, Volumes 1 and 2.