The Secret of the Empire By Heimito von Doderer, Translation, Foreword and Afterword by John S. Barrett

A novel based on Doderer's own experience as one of the thousands of Austrian World-War I prisoners-of-war trapped east of the Ural Mountains by the Russian civil War. Pawns of incalculable violence and cruelty — as well as indulgence — some will eventually manage to make their way back to Austria.