Black Obelisk

What remains of a person when the world around them gradually loses its conscience?
"The Black Obelisk" is not just a story of post-war Germany, but an attempt to understand how to live on when all old illusions have been shattered. Remarque writes about a time when humanity becomes a personal choice, and silence – a form of consent. This is a book for those who seek not simple answers, but inner honesty.

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"The Black Obelisk" (1956) is Erich Maria Remarque's most "philosophical" novel, concentrating the entire ideological content of the famous German writer's work. Running through the book is the concept of "farewell to illusions," characteristic of the texts of the "lost generation" representatives.
Like most of Remarque's works, "The Black Obelisk" is highly autobiographical. At its center are ordinary people who face the collapse of familiar institutions and rules in the post-war world. There are almost no unequivocally positive or negative characters here – the reader themselves assesses and defines the heroes.
"The Black Obelisk" is a novel about how to remain human in the unbearable conditions of an inhumane society, of the fascist barbarism that gradually envelops interwar Germany, for which Remarque feels such pain.