She became a writer because her country vanished overnight. Jenny Erpenbeck, now 57, was 22 in 1989, when the Berlin Wall cracked by accident, then collapsed. She was having a “girls’ evening out,” she said, so she had no idea what had happened until the next morning. When a professor discussed it in class, she said, it became real to her.
The country she knew, the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, remains a crucial setting for most of her striking, precise fiction. Her work, which has grown in acuity and emotional power, combines the complications of German and Soviet history with the lives of her characters, including those of her own family members, whose experiences echo with the past like contrapuntal music.
Her latest novel to be translated into English, “Kairos,” has been a breakthrough. It is now on the shortlist for the International Booker Prize and considered a favorite to win the award late next month. Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
