All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque publisher: Everyman’s Library Hardcover ISBN: 9781101908082 All Quiet on the Western Front, widely regarded as one of the greatest novels to emerge from the First World War, became an international bestseller upon its publication in 1929. The author’s aim was to speak for a generation shattered by war—even for those who survived the shelling. Though German, Remarque wrote for the ordinary soldier of every nation, giving voice to the shared grief of millions.

In 1914, Paul Bäumer and his classmates, barely twenty, volunteer for service, fired by patriotic fervour. Few survive. Confronted with the dehumanising horrors of modern warfare, the boys quickly lose their idealism. Death becomes their constant companion, and meaning seems to exist only in the intense camaraderie that binds them together amid the chaos.

Back home, Paul feels alienated—from civilian life, from his father who wants heroic tales, and from older non-combatants eager to urge young men toward glory. Their rhetoric rings hollow against the brutal truth he has witnessed at the front. For its unflinching honesty, Remarque was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1933, and his novel was publicly burned.

Written in raw, laconic, almost documentary prose, All Quiet on the Western Front retains a startling immediacy. A century after the Great War, it continues to speak with undiminished power and pathos.