Isherwood is both the author and the narrator of Goodbye to Berlin. The reader is left to assume that many of the narrator’s observations and encounters within the novel are based largely on the author’s personal experiences in Berlin, where he lived from 1929 to 1933. Isherwood is an Englishman, living abroad in Berlin, Germany. He makes a living as a private tutor, teaching English to those in wealthier neighborhoods. Isherwood was once a medical student, but now focuses his energy on teaching and writing. We can gather from the observations of others that Isherwood is a well-bred gentleman and is respected by his many friends. 

Though Isherwood is our narrator, he is more often concerned with presenting us with the characters surrounding him, rather than himself; indeed, the novel is structured to focus its chapters on the other main characters. Conversations with these people are written mostly as direct dialogue, with Isherwood rarely intervening with his own impressions or feelings. He is a very passive character. This tells us something about Isherwood: as a writer, he is much more interested in documenting the world around him than his own interior world. On the first page of the novel, Isherwood tells us, “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking” (3).