REMARQUE RETURNED TO THE refugee theme in two more novels, only one of which was published in his lifetime. Die Nacht von Lissabon (The Night in Lisbon) first appeared in book form, after the customary serialization, in 1962, and was the last novel he saw published. It is also a work of high quality. Schatten im Paradies (Shadows in Paradise) appeared in the year after Remarque's death, 1971, in a text published by his widow, Paulette Goddard. Although it existed in a complete manuscript that was edited and to an extent cut by the publisher (Droemer-Knaur in Munich rather than Remarque's by then usual Kiepenheuer and Witsch), Remarque had never arranged a publishing contract and seems therefore not to have intended doing so. There is, moreover, a later, incomplete revision of this work surviving in a mixture of manuscript and typescript. An edited text appeared with the title Das gelobte Land (The Promised Land) in 1998. In spite of the publicity claims made when Schatten im Paradies was published that several texts existed and this was the version that Remarque had been working on almost to the end of his life, there seem really only to have been two, and that which forms the basis for Schatten im Paradies was the earlier of them. Das gelobte Land is different from Schatten im Paradies in a number of respects, although large portions were retained. What we have of Remarque's incomplete second version has itself undergone revisions, and all we have of its projected ending is a series of notes.

It is ironic that just as there are various claimants to be Remarque's first novel there are various possibilities, too, for his last. Schatten im Paradies has established itself, however dubious the text, as the “last complete novel,” but in real terms, his last novel was Die Nacht von Lissabon. However, both of them follow on in terms of historical content fairly closely from Liebe Deinen Nächsten and Arc de Triomphe, so that it is appropriate to treat them outside the chronology of writing. Die Nacht in Lissabon is set for the most part in 1942, although it is, as we discover in the final pages, being recounted, as with Der schwarze Obelisk, from a postwar perspective by a narrator whose experiences match those of Kern, Ravic, and other refugees.