This remarkable book is an exciting and intriguing story, a blend of Hindu mythology and existentialism told with great verve in a vigorous, direct language of many moods and voices. Manas is one of the major novels Alfred Doblin produced over the forty tumultuous years pre-World War 1 to post-World War 2. Doblin himself is one of the least known of the twentieth century's great German writers, though his reputation has grown in Germany since his death in 1957. The English reader comes to Doblin with little idea what to expect. Maybe a vague knowledge of one title from his vast output: Berlin Alexanderplatz. The Story of Franz Biberkopf, published in 1929. The next novel after Manas, it has eclipsed all the rest ever since its publication in 1929.
