Aladdin's Problem

First edition in English. The Eridanos Library series. 8vo. Pp. 136, [3]. Navy blue linen cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. Photographic frontispiece. Jacket design by Louise Fili. Translated from the German by Joachim Neugroschel. Afterword by Martin Meyer.

Author's last novel. A funeral assistant, troubled by the emptiness of modern life, conceives a lucrative enterprise registering human permanence. "Time is the great, indeed the only source of tragedy... Time overpowers, it cannot be overcome" (from Jünger's 1984 collection of reflections, maxims and aphorisms, Autor und Autorenschaft [Author and Authorship], published by Klett-Cotta, in Stuttgart).

A German writer who could annoy Nazis and Communists alike, yet enjoy the support of both Hitler and Brecht, the centenarian Jünger is best known for his WWI memoir Storm of Steel. He was awarded the Iron Cross I. Class, Pour le Mérite, Grand Merit Cross, Schiller Memorial Prize, Goethe Prize, and the Maximillian Order, among many military and literary distinctions. "[An] elegant allegorical novel." –Publishers Weekly

[Fortunati & Trousson, eds., Dictionary of Literary Utopias, pp. 211–3]