Freedom, Intoxication and Black Cats

Bohemian life revolutionised ideas about what constituted a good life – less in texts and manifestoes than in day-to-day life with all its ambivalences. Andreas Schwab paints a portrait not only of the writers and artists, the men and women of the bohemian world who started this lifestyle revolution, but also of the places where they met: the ‘Schwarze Ferkel’ pub in Berlin, the ‘Chat Noir’ in Paris’s Montmartre, the ‘Café Stefanie’ and the cabaret ‘Die Elf Scharfrichter’ in Munich. He produces a richly atmospheric description of bohemian life, illustrating the fascination people felt and still feel for it to this day.