Episode 1 Transcript. Introduction to AD. Includes a reading of “Two Souls in a Single Breast (Doctor Döblin and the Writer Döblin)”.
Episode 2 Transcript. AD’s Epics: What? How? Why? Includes a dramatised reading from his 1905 medical thesis.
Episode 3 Transcript. AD’s biography 1878-1900. Includes a reading from his (unpublished, anguished) 1917 attempt at an autobiography.
Episode 4 Transcript. The Three Leaps of Wang Lun. Includes a reading of the two final scenes:jubilant Emperor; grieving mother.
And a bonus: The Adventurous Readers Guide to Wang Lun. Packed with useful background, missing passages, and reviews.
Episode 5 Transcript: Biography 1912-1922 Includes a reading “The Musicians” from Wallenstein – a lovely miniature scene, minutely observed.
Episode 6 transcript: Mountains Oceans Giants. Reading: an intense depiction of the Tourmaline fleet.
Episode 7 transcript: The Weimar Twenties. Reading: from a 1930 broadcast by Döblin, about his creative life and what Berlin has meant to him.
Episode 8 transcript: the epic-in-verse Manas. Döblin’s most unjustly neglected work, ripe for discovery by Adventurous Readers. The Reading this time has a cast of three – very dramatic!
Episode 9 transcript: The Alexanderplatz Event. Here we come to the high point of Döblin’s literary career. How did he arrive at the theme and format of Berlin Alexanderplatz? What else was going on in his life as he wrote the novel? How was it received? What challenges does it pose for translators?
Episode 10 transcript : Things Fall Apart. In this final episode of Season 1, we follow momentous changes in Döblin’s life as the Wall Street Crash causes economic havoc, while the unexpected windfall from Berlin Alexanderplatz enables the family to move to classy Berlin West – meaning an end to Alfred’s medical practice.
SEASON TWO TRANSCRIPTS
Season 2 Episode 1: Escape in to Exile. We begin Season 2 with the nerve-wracking three days when Germany was turned upside down, and upstanding citizen Alfred Döblin had to flee for his life to safety in Switzerland – the start of what became 12 years of exile. Cloak-and-dagger action, and rapidly changing moods.
Season 2 Episode 2: Seven years in France. A settled-unsettled existence. How did Döblin apply his energies? How did he relate to various exile communities? And why, in his only meeting with James Joyce, did the two men “stare at one another and say nothing”?
Season 2 Episode 3: Fateful Journey – The Escape from France. In the summer of 1940 the Döblin family had to flee ahead of invading German forces, desperately casting about for safe haven options. Alfred, separated for weeks from his wife Erna and their youngest son – and with no news of two other sons serving in the French Army – suffered near-total physical, mental and spiritual collapse. Erna’s decision to aim for the USA required only the gathering of exit permits, entry visas, travel money, boat tickets … all against a fast-ticking clock.
Season 2 Episode 4: A Year in Hollywood. Released 1 June 2025. A giant of modern European literature and thought encounters Tinseltown – a lifeline for his family’s new exile existence, but an industrial-scale locus of “fraudulent wordsmithery”. And he narrowly misses out on an Oscar!
Season 2 Episode 5: Döblin’s Conversion. Released 15 June 2025
Season 2 Episode 6 Secret Life . Released 1 October 2025