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# Inside Isherwood’s Berlin
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/inside-isherwoods-berlin/
- Published: 2004-04-15T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:13:14.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: local, Montana, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

A Santa Monica literary legend is being uncovered. A diverse and prolific author, the British-born, Santa Monica-weaned Christopher Isherwood is best known as the writer behind the popular musical “Cabaret,” based on his tales of Weimar Berlin.

But city officials are interested in Isherwood’s two-part book, “The Berlin Stories.” On Saturday, Citywide Reads will kick off its community reading program with an ode to — and an analysis of — Isherwood’s work. The presentation will be from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Montana Avenue Branch Library.

Entitled “Isherwood in Context,” the presentation will include talks by assorted experts on Isherwood and Weimar.

Sue Hodson, curator of Literary Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, will offer an overview of Isherwood’s life and works, emphasizing his youthful Berlin experiences, the real people behind characters like Sally Bowles, and his friendship with authors W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and E. M. Forster.

Timothy Benson, curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will give an illustrated talk that explores Isherwood’s Berlin through the eyes of contemporary artists such as Otto Dix and George Grosz, who gave expression to the bustling metropolis and political tension that marked Berlin between the two World Wars.

Carola Kaplan, professor of English at California State University, Pomona, presents “Isherwood in Hollywood: Where the Wandering Stopped,” focusing on the author’s life, his literary and other writings, and his search for spiritual fulfillment during his years in America that culminated in his masterful portrait of life in mid-century Southern California in the novel “A Single Man.”

Santa Monica Citywide Reads events are free and open to the public. For more information, call the Santa Monica Public Library at (310) 458-8600 or visit www.smpl.org/cwr.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 15, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/041504.pdf?ref=smdp.com)