Books in the German List series

Poetically written and originally given as lectures, this is a moving essay collection from Durs Grÿnbein. In his four Lord Weidenfeld Lectures held in Oxford in 2019, German poet Durs Grÿnbein dealt with a topic that has occupied his mind ever since he began to perceive his own position within the past of his nation, his linguistic community, and his family: How is it possible that history can determine the individual poetic imagination and segregate it into private niches? Shouldn‿t poetry look at the world with its own sovereign eyes instead?   In the form of a collage or “photosynthesis,â€? in image and text, Grÿnbein lets the fundamental opposition between poetic license and almost overwhelming bondage to history appear in an exemplary way. From the seeming trifle of a stamp with the portrait of Adolf Hitler, he moves through the phenomenon of the “Fÿhrer‿s streetsâ€? and into the inferno of aerial warfare. In the end, Grÿnbein argues that we are faced with the powerlessness of writing and the realization, valid to this day, that comes from confronting history. As he muses, “There is something beyond literature that questions all writing.â€?

Four classical Greek myths retold with unexpected twists by an East German dissident.  Franz Fÿhmann‿s subversive retellings of four Greek legends were first published in East Germany in 1980. In them, Fÿhmann plumbs the ancient tales‿ depths and makes them his own. Attuned to conflict and paradox, he sheds light on the complexities of sex and love, art and beauty, politics and power. In the title story, the love of the goddess Eos for the mortal Tithonos reveals the blessing and curse of transience, while “Hera and Zeusâ€? probes the divine couple‿s tumultuous relationship and its devastating consequences for a world embroiled in war. Fÿhmann‿s unflinching account of Marsyas‿ flaying by Apollo has been widely read as a dissident political statement that has lost none of its incisive force. At times charged with sensuality, and at others honed to a keen analytical edge, Fÿhmann‿s shimmering prose is matched by Sunandini Banerjee‿s exquisite collages.

German author Friedrich Ani combines deep sorrow, human darkness, and breath-taking tension in his latest crime novel. Happiness is extinguished completely one cold November night when eleven-year-old Lennard Grabbe fails to return home. Thirty-four days later, he is found to have been murdered, and former inspector Jakob Franck, the protagonist of Friedrich Ani‿s previous novel The Nameless Day, is entrusted with delivering the most horrible news any parent could ever dream of, setting off a chain reaction of grief among family and friends.   As the special task force is unable to make any progress in the case and the family is unable to deal with the loss, Franck‿driven by the need to bring them clarity but also by the painful memories of all the unsolved murder cases from when he was still on active duty‿buries himself in witness statements and reports up to the point of exhaustion. He spends hours at the crime scene and employs his special technique of “thought sensitivity,â€? an abstract, intuitive process that may very well lead him to the “fossilâ€?‿that crucial piece of information he needs to solve the case.   Once again, Ani combines deep sorrow, human darkness, and breath-taking tension in a novel whose melancholy can hardly be surpassed.

An experimental novel that pushes the constraints of language to bear witness to the history of both Germany and the individual.

In a world full of devils, the giant ape Kong defends what he loves the most. But who and what is this undomesticated animal? Might it reside within us? As we tread confidently, is this where the earth opens up beneath us?   In Kong‿s Finest Hour, Alexander Kluge explores anew the accessible spaces where Kong dwells within us and in our million-year-old past. The more than two hundred stories contained in this volume form a chronicle of connections that together survey these spaces using diverse perspectives. These include stories about the folds of Kong‿s nose, the voice of the author‿s mother, the poet Heinrich von Kleist and Jack the Ripper, the indestructability of the political, and the supercontinent Pangaea that once unified the earth. Dissolving theory into storytelling has been Kluge‿s lifelong pursuit, and this magnificent collection tells stories of people as well of things.   First in a series of Kluge‿s Chronicles forthcoming from Seagull Books, Kong‿s Finest Hour will delight those familiar with his writing as well as introduce readers to the brilliance of one of Germany‿s greatest living writers. Â

The poems of Ulrike Almut Sandig are at once simple and fantastic. This new collection finds her on her way to imaginary territories. Thick of It charts a journey through two hemispheres to "the center of the world" and navigates a "thicket" that is at once the world, the psyche, and language itself.

The latest work by Peter Handke chronicles a day in life of an aging actor as he makes his way on foot from the outskirts of a great metropolis into its center.

Any new book by poet, essayist, writer, and translator Hans Magnus Enzensberger, one of the most influential and internationally renowned German intellectuals, is cause for notice, and Mr. Zed‿s Reflections is no exception. Every afternoon for almost a year, a plump man named Mr. Zed comes to the same spot in the city park and engages passersby with quick-witted repartee. Those who pass ask, who is this man? A wisecracker, a clown, a belligerent philosopher? Many shake their heads and move on; others listen to him, engage with him, and, again and again, end up at the same place. He doesn‿t write anything down, but his listeners often take notes. With subversive energy and masterful brevity, Mr. Zed undermines arrogance, megalomania, and false authority. A determined speaker who doesn‿t care for ambitions, he forces topics that others would rather keep to themselves. Reluctant to trust institutions and seeing absolutely nothing as “non-negotiable,â€? he admits mistakes and does away with judgment.  He is no mere ventriloquist dummy for his creator‿he is too stubborn for that. And at the end of the season, when it becomes too cold and uncomfortable in the park, he disappears, never to be seen again. Collected in this thought-provoking and unique work are the considerations and provocations of this squat, park-bench philosopher, giving us a volume of truths and conversations that are clear-cut, skeptical, and fiercely illuminating.

A book about bitter fates‿both already known and yet to unfold‿and the many kinds of organized machinery built to destroy people. Alexander Kluge‿s work has long grappled with the Third Reich and its aftermath, and the extermination of the Jews forms its gravitational center. Kluge is forever reminding us to keep our present catastrophes in perspective‿“calibratedâ€?‿against this historical monstrosity. Kluge‿s newest work is a book about bitter fates, both already known and yet to unfold. Above all, it is about the many kinds of organized machinery built to destroy people. These forty-eight stories of justice and injustice are dedicated to the memory of Fritz Bauer, a determined fighter for justice and district attorney of Hesse during the Auschwitz Trials. “The moment they come into existence, monstrous crimes have a unique ability,â€? Bauer once said, “to ensure their own repetition.â€? Kluge takes heed, and in these pages reminds us of the importance of keeping our powers of observation and memory razor sharp. Â

Reinhard Jirgl's strikingly individual novel The Fire Above, the Mountain Below demonstrates that he is not only unorthodox in his approach to language, but also difficult to pin down in terms of any genre. Weaving together elements of crime story, Cold War espionage, family tragedy, and a dystopian future, he creates a tapestry of fragile humanity and menacing inhumanity. The investigation of a series of gruesome killings takes a detective inspector into explorations of a secret intelligence programme in former East Germany and the role of a family with a tragic history. The more is uncovered, the more disorienting it becomes, and the reader is drawn into a complex web of discovery and suppression.

When Kurt Weber inherits his great-uncle‿s lakeside house, he finds traces of the dark secrets of his family‿s past. The early inhabitants of the house haunt his dreams nightly. And one day a ghostlike woman appears before him, hiding herself in a room that had been kept locked throughout his childhood. Inside, Kurt finds a hidden stash of photographs, letters, and documents. As he deciphers them, he gradually understands the degree of complicity in wartime horrors by his family and among his neighbors. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the entire village adheres to an old and widely understood agreement not to expose the many members in the community who had been involved with a nearby prison camp during World War II. This knowledge wraps the entire community‿those involved, and those who know of the involvement‿in inescapable guilt for generations. Translated from the original German by Tess Lewis, Ludwig‿s Room is a story of love, betrayal, honor, and cowardice, as well as the burden of history and the moral demands of the present.

A series of sketches, depicting the last months of World War II and the first year of the subsequent British occupation of Austria.

Offers an examination of the psychology of National Socialism. In this title, each story presents a snapshot of a personal and historical turning point in the life of the narrator, beginning with childhood anti-Semitism and moving to a youthful embrace - and an ultimate rejection - of Nazi ideology.

IN

Born in the former East Germany, Volker Braun is a humane, witty, brave, and disappointed poet. In the East, his poetry upheld the voice of the individual imagination and identified with a utopian possibility that never became reality. This is a selection of poems from the distinguished, half-century-long career of German poet Volker Braun.

Opens with a young couple enjoying a moment of carefree intimacy. Then the young woman, turning slightly more serious, asks her lover that fateful question, one that sounds so innocent but carries toxic seeds of jealousy: What was your life like before you met me?

When Keith Stapperpfenning and his family give their grandfather the trip of a lifetime - an all-expenses-paid holiday to any destination in the world - the eccentric old man arbitrarily chooses China, and he asks Keith to accompany him. But when his grandfather dies unexpectedly, Keith is left to continue the farce alone.

The author was arguably the best-known and most influential writer in the former East Germany. In this title, she revisits her stay at a tuberculosis hospital in the winter of 1946, a real-life event that was the inspiration for the closing scenes of her 1976 novel Patterns of Childhood.

Drawn from the author's experiences as a political prisoner and as a refugee, this novel features Rasul Hamid who describes the eight different ways he fled his home in Iraq and the eight different ways he has failed to find a way home. It is a literary looking glass between two cultures, between two places, and between East and West.

Two sisters travel to Sofia - in a convoy of luxury limousines arranged by a fellow Bulgarian exile - to bury their less-than-beloved father. This title gives an account of a daughter's bitterly funny reckoning with her father and his country, laden with linguistic wit and black humor.

Out of the many tragedies that almost seem to define the first decade of our century, the author has fashioned a richly woven, multilayered tapestry that not only explores the human side but brings out the cultural, historical, social, and political context within which the tragedies occur.

Almost twenty years after the fall of the wall, the Kreuzberg district of Berlin has become unbearably trendy and deeply unappealing to Alina and Wolf. They move to Muggelsee, at the city's bucolic border. But there, Wolf finds himself increasingly strained by the triviality of his daily routine with Alina.

One night in the middle of winter, as deep snow covers the mountains and forests of Austria, a doctor is crossing a ridge from Traich to Foding to see a patient. He stumbles over a body in the darkness and fears it is a corpse. But it's not a corpse at all - in fact, it's wooden-legged Victor Halfwit, collapsed, but still very much alive.

A fire broke out in the coal seams of their town years ago, and the flames are still smoldering underground. Margaret and Fritzi are the two sisters who are the last remaining youth of this vanishing town. Their inheritance is nothing but an abandoned swathe of land ruled by devastation.

Eich, a thirty-something freelance journalist, is researching a story on the radicals of the previous generation in Germany. His path keeps crossing with Nele, a young member of a left-wing group of student activists who are resistant to the increasing control and surveillance of all spheres of life by state and commercial institutions.

A decaying apartment building in post-Wall Berlin is home to Hell, a young woman with a passion for martial arts. When Hell's neighbor disappears she sets out across the city in search of her. In the course of her quest, she falls in love with a bank robber, confronts her own dark memories, and ends up saving more than just her missing neighbor.