Goodbye to Berlin is a 1939 short novel by Christopher Isherwood set in Weimar Germany. It is often published together with Mr Norris Changes Trains in a collection called The Berlin Stories. The novel, a semiautobiographical account of Isherwood's time in 1930s Berlin, describes pre-Nazi Germany and the people he met. It is episodic, dealing with a large cast over a period of several years from late 1930 to early 1933. It is written as a connected series of six short stories and novellas. These are: "A Berlin Diary ," "Sally Bowles," "On Ruegen Island ," "The Nowaks," "The Landauers," and "A... Berlin Diary ." Moving to Germany to work on his novel, Isherwood soon becomes involved with a diverse array of German citizens: the caring landlady, Frl. Schroeder; the "divinely decadent" Sally Bowles, a young Englishwoman who sings in the local cabaret and her coterie of admirers; Natalia Landauer, the rich, Jewish heiress of a prosperous family business; Peter and Otto, a gay couple struggling to accept their relationship and sexuality in light of the rise of the Nazis.
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