Pigeons on the Grass — Wolfgang Koeppen

Here is an English translation of a post-war German classic. The events of the novel take place during the course of a single day in an unnamed city in occupied Germany where the endless drone of allied planes overhead increases the already heightened tension. Throughout this powerful narrative, the characters' experiences ultimately reveal how and at what cost Germans in the 1950s, by failing to confront their recent past, blinded themselves to its after effects.