title: Confession of a Murderer
text: # Confession of a Murderer
  
  Confession of a Murderer (German: Beichte eines Mörders) is a 1936 novel by the Austrian writer Joseph Roth. It has the subtitle Told in One Night (Erzählt in einer Nacht). The narrative focuses on a Russian exile, Golubchik, who tells what he claims is his life's story to a group of people, including Roth, in a restaurant in Paris.
  
  ## Reception
  
  James A. Snead of The New York Times wrote in 1985: "Roth's night-story implicitly identifies the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with Golubchik's private 'tragedy of banality.' His futile search for paternity, homeland and revenge, ranging over 'Old Europe' from Odessa to Paris, is an ambivalent elegy to a lost epoch. The double narration creates an air of evasiveness and manipulation that mirrors the intrigues of the state bureaucracies Golubchik encounters."
  
  