Mars in Aries - Penguin Modern Classics by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

A haunting novel of love, fate and war from the Austrian master and acclaimed author of Baron Bagge and Count Luna ('A book so astonishing I immediately re-read it' – Patti Smith)

‘He’d had the feeling that he was expected there, on that day. But by whom?’

Vienna, 1939. Lieutenant Wallmoden is preparing to take part in a mysterious ‘military exercise’ when he meets the austerely beautiful Baroness Pistohlkors and her elusive circle of acquaintances. He promises to see her again – but then discovers his company has been mobilised for war. Marching across Europe, stumbling across the border between the living and the dead, one constant remains: he must keep his tryst with the Baroness, in this world or the next.

Banned by the Nazis and almost lost, Mars in Aries is an erotically charged ghost story, a shocking account of the invasion of Poland, and a mesmeric exploration of time and fate.

Translated by Robert Dassanowsky and John Barrett