Radio Dialogues I: Evening Programs

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