Name: Sarah Christine Gill's review of The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Boll
Item: The Train Was on Time
Rating: 5
Author: Sarah Christine Gill

Heinrich Boll

The hauntingly beautiful first novel by Nobel Prize winning author Heinrich Boll Twenty-four-year-old Andreas, a disillusioned German soldier, is travelling on a troop train to the Eastern Front when he has an awful premonition that he will die in exactly five days. As he hurtles towards his death, he reflects on the chaos around him - the naïve soldiers, the painfully thin girl who pours his coffee, the ruined countryside - with sudden, heart-breaking poignancy. Arriving in Poland the night before he is certain he will die, he meets Olina, a beautiful prostitute, and together they attempt to escape his fate... 'His work reaches the highest level of creative originality and stylistic perfection' Daily Telegraph 'Boll combines a mammoth intelligence with a literary outlook that is masterful and unique' Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22 'My most-admired contemporary novelist' John Ashbery 'From the moment I stepped on board the troop train with Private Andreas, concerns pertaining to my own world fell away completely. Holding this impelling book is tantamount to holding the young soldier's fate in one's hands. It is impossible to let go.' Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Pond

The Train Was on Time

Laura Leila Marta

Heinrich Böll

The Train was on Time

Incredibly moving. Incredible, propulsive (100 page) masterpiece of style and form to tell a story you think you’ve read a hundred times in the freshest, saddest and ultimately beautiful way imaginable. Highly recommend. 

Sarah Christine Gill

Leila Vennewitz

Previously published: London: Secker and Warburg, 1970. With new afterword by William T. Vollmann.

Laura Leila Marta &
The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Boll

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Laura Leila Marta &The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Boll

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Laura Leila Marta &
The Train Was on Time by Heinrich Boll