Berlin: Tribüne Verlag, 1954. Paperback in original wrappers, 184 pp. Illustrated with numerous black & white photographs and tables. 21 x 15 cm. First edition, first printing. Near fine. Back slightly rubbed. Back cover slightly soiled. Pages slighly browned.
This is a near fine copy of a book that has become very scarce, written by Stefan Heym a few years after his return from the USA, where he had lived in exile from 1935 to 1951. As a committed marxist-leninist, Heym left during the McCarthy-era, after protesting against the US involvement in the Korean war by giving back the war medals he earned for his work in a psychological warfare unit, the Second Mobile Broadcasting Company, and as one of the ''hog callers'', urging Wehrmacht troops to surrender. Heym left the USA to resettle first in Czechoslowakia and later in the German Democratic Republic (GDPR/DDR).
Although the title of this book hints at America's historical reputation as the land of opportunities, Reise ins Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten is actualy a series of partisan articles uncritically glorifying the Soviet Union. A nice example of propaganda as it was produced during the Cold War.
Heym's literary work was profoundly influenced by the years he had lived in the United States. Quoted in Heym's New York Times obituary, Klaus Korn said: ''We saw him as somebody from over there, from America. His novels were more in the American style, Sinclair Lewis or Norman Mailer, than German.''
Published by the Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, Bundesvorstand, Zentralvorstand der Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft.
Language: German