Joseph Roth is one of the least-known, yet easily the most accessible of the great twentieth-century writers. His deceptively light, massively concentrated fables of modern history evoke a world of catastrophic change, of disastrous belief and extreme loss. As the century ends, his stature is increasingly appreciated. And British readers, in particular, will find in his stories of a great empire’s fall deep echoes of their own experience.

Granta Books’ major programme of republication of Roth’s work continues with his last untranslated novel, Rebellion - the story of a Great War veteran, Andreas Pum, who loses a leg and gains a medal. He marries, plays a barrel-organ, and is happy. But when he is imprisoned after a fight life seems unbearably altered. Then a chance encounter with an old comrade who has made his fortune brings Pum to a world where he has a transfiguring experience of justice …