Mr Norris Changes Trains

Isherwood's immortal novel about political high-tension, passion and literary talent in 1930s Berlin

After a chance encounter on a train the English teacher William Bradshaw starts a close friendship with the mildly sinister Arthur Norris. Norris is a man of contradictions; First published in 1933 Mr Norris Changes Trains piquantly evokes the atmosphere of Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.

On a train to Berlin in late 1930, William Bradshaw locks eyes with Arthur Norris.

This chance encounter ignites a close friendship between the two Englishmen, one that draws Bradshaw into the seedier quarters of the city. Here Norris runs a dubious import–export business and lives in excited fear of his bullying secretary, his creditors and his dominatrix girlfriend, Anni. Yet there is something mildly sinister about Norris himself. Bradshaw’s new companion is a man of contradictions: heavily in debt but extraordinarily lavish, excessively polite but sexually deviant. Ultimately, Norris is a man who can’t outrun his secrets.

‘A masterpiece in comic portraiture’ Guardian

‘Radiant prose rhythm married to the most delicious dialogue’ Sebastian Barry

‘Isherwood sketches with the lightest of touches the last gasp of the decaying demi-monde and the vigorous world of communists and Nazis, grappling with each other on the edge of the abyss’ Sunday Telegraph

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