Alfred Döblin (1878–1957) was a German novelist, essayist and short-story writer. He was also a doctor, practising psychiatry in working-class Berlin, the setting of both his most famous novel, Berlin Alexanderplatz, and his true-crime tale Two Women and a Poisoning. In 1933, Döblin was forced to flee Germany because of his Jewish origins and lived in France and the USA for the duration of the war.