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Portrait of Alfred Döblin, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 1/4 in. (50.8 x 41.3 cm). Courtesy of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Association Fund (Wikimedia Commons)
In Two Women and a Poisoning, Alfred Döblin (1878–1957), one of the twentieth century’s greatest fiction writers, brings his other gift – a profound insight into psychological suffering honed by decades of experience as a psychiatrist – to bear on a baffling murder trial in Berlin in March 1923. Like Sigmund Freud’s famous case histories, his account is compelling as both narrative and an analysis of the unconscious inner conflicts of the people involved. Unlike Freud, however, Döblin warns his readers not to expect definitive answers: ‘Who is so conceited as to fancy that he knows the true driving forces behind such a crime?’
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