The twenty-eight-year-old Hermann Kesten received honorable mention at the awarding of the prestigious Kleist Prize in 1928 for his first novel, Josef sucht die Freiheit (1927; translated as Josef Breaks Free , 1930), the first of many honors that would be bestowed upon him for his achievements in literature. Kesten's fourteen novels and eight volumes of shorter works, including essays, biographies, short stories, and novellas, attest to his prodigious energies and also reveal a writer critical of his time, consistently outspoken in his defense of the freedom of the individual. He has edited anthologies of German and French authors; an exile himself during the Nazi period, he has organized the publications of other writers in exile. He has been an active member of many literary organizations, notably the German P.E.N. Club.

Kesten's energy has met with a somewhat mixed response. His works have gone through many editions and some have...