Book news, reviews and recommendations
I was delighted to spot a new Jenny Erpenbeck on the horizon, putting up my hand as soon as I was offered a proof of Kairos. Erpenbeck’s books offer much food for thought on the events that have shaped modern Germany. Opening in 1986, her new novel charts an affair between Hans, a successful writer […]
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (transl. Michael Hofmann): ‘The god of fortunate moments’ Read More »
Back from the not so chilly north (more of that on Friday) with a novel I snapped up as soon as I spotted it on NetGalley. I’ve been a fan of Daniela Krien’s understated writing since I read Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything back in 2015. Not such a lengthy gap between Love in
The Fire by Daniela Krien (Transl. Jamie Bulloch): Discovering who you are Read More »
Roland Schimmelpfennig’s clever, smartly structured One Clear Ice-cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century was one of my books of 2018. Set in Berlin’s underworld, Liminal is very different but it also explores the darker side of modern Germany, following a cop whose life has been shattered by a tragic event. Sometimes,
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Olivia Wenzel’s 1,000 Coils of Fear. Wenzel is a mixed-race German who grew up in the old East, a dramatist, musician and performer who’s turned her hand to fiction. Her debut draws heavily on her own life following an unnamed narrator whose mother was an East German punk
1,000 Coils of Fear by Olivia Wenzel (transl. Priscilla Layne): ‘Where do you belong?’ Read More »
Peirene Press novellas are reliably excellent but rarely cheery reads. Katja Oskamp’s Marzhan, Mon Amour bucks that trend with its tender, affectionate portrait of a community told through a set of thumbnail sketches of her clients by an unnamed writer turned chiropodist. Regular readers might notice that this is the second visit to Berlin in
Marzahn, Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp (transl. Jo Heinrich): An everyday gem Read More »
Two years ago, I reviewed Takis Würger’s The Club whose exploration of entitlement through the appalling behaviour of an Oxford University boxing club struck horribly familiar chords. Stella, his new novel, also tackles discomfiting territory this time through a love story about a wealthy young Swiss man and the beautiful artists’ model he meets in
Stella by Takis Würger (transl Liesl Schillinger): In search of truth Read More »
Lucy Fricke’s Daughters is the second V&Q Books launch title I’ve reviewed in a week. Each is very different from the other, yet both are concerned with families and how they shape us. Whereas Sandra Hoffmann’s Paula was a moving piece of cathartic autofiction, Daughters is a road novel with a sharply comic edge which
Daughters by Lucy Fricke (transl. Sinéad Crowe): Friends forever Read More »
Sandra Hoffmann’s Paula is one of the launch titles for V&Q Books who specialise in translated German fiction. In her translator’s note Katy Derbyshire explains that so impressed was she with Hoffmann’s book that, unable to find a British publisher for her translation, she decided to approach a German press with a view to setting
Paula by Sandra Hoffmann (transl. Katy Derbyshire): The power of silence Read More »
I’ve read all of Daniel Kehlmann’s translated novels, each very different from the others but all witty and smart. His last book, You Should Have Left, was a short, gothic number, both chilling and riveting. In comparison Tyll is a lengthy, historical novel set against the backdrop of the Thirty Years War which raged across
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (transl. Ross Benjamin): Telling truth to power Read More »
Timur Vermes is clearly not a man to shy away from controversy. His sharp, very funny satire, Look Who’s Back, nailed the internet’s potential for political manipulation with admirable, if unsettling, prescience when Hitler wakes up with a bad headache in 2011 and quickly becomes a YouTube star. The Hungry and the Fat takes on
I had my eye on this one as soon as I saw that it was translated by the excellent Charlotte Collins, although I think I would have read it anyway. Set against a backdrop of privilege and entitlement, Takis Würger’s The Club follows Hans, a young German orphan whose estranged aunt has spotted a way
The Club by Takis Würger (transl. Charlotte Collins): All too believable Read More »