A Shadow of Myself
A vivid, hallucinatory rediscovered classic about split identity in the wake of First World War trauma
Hans, an esteemed surgeon, has just returned from the hellish battlefields of the First World War. But everything in his home feels alien, even his wife Grete. As he tries to regain a sense of normality, he is haunted by nightmarish visions and a profound sense of dissociation. Has the war turned him into someone else? Or has another man wormed his way into Hans’s life?
Told in a feverish monologue, A Shadow of Myself is a vivid, hallucinatory immersion in an unsettled mind. First published in 1926 and rediscovered in Germany only last year, this lightning-bolt of a war classic is now appearing in English for the first time.
Reviews
‘This unsettling novel set in the aftermath of the First World War was written by a veteran in 1926. [...] The novel creates a picture of a tormented mind, and evokes the profound dislocation felt by veterans returning home from a savage conflict.’ —The Times – Best historical fiction books of 2025
'Peter Flamm’s 1926 novel A Shadow of Myself is being republished, and should be essential reading. [...] The unearthing of A Shadow of Myself is therefore cause not only for literary celebration, but also for historical reflection.' —Olivia Ward-Jackson in The Daily Telegraph