Paul Sullivan selects ten more must-read novels set in the city of Berlin…
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (2021)
Translation: Michael Hofmann
“Strange, she thinks, all these years a little bit of my life has gone on existing in this stranger’s head. And now he’s given it back to me.”
Jenny Erpenbeck is a powerhouse in contemporary German literature, and her works are often—but not always—set in East Germany, where she grew up. This love story begins in East Berlin in 1986, when a nineteen-year-old Katharina meets Hans, a much older married writer in his fifties. Their passionate but complicated affair takes place against the background of a collapsing GDR and beyond into reunification and its aftermath. But the focus is on the way in which Katharina’s world disappears and how Hans gradually grows more abusive. There’s no happy ending but the mixture of bleakness, portrayal of a country and culture long gone, and Erpenbeck’s flowing prose—beautifully translated by Michael Hofmann—make it a poignant read.
Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada (1932)
Translation: Michael Hofmann
“He was one of millions. Ministers made speeches to him, enjoined him to tighten his belt, to make sacrifices, to feel German, to put his money in the savings-bank and to vote for the constitutional party.”
Every lit fan who has spent any time in Berlin usually gets to find out about Hans Fallada quite quickly, in particular his novel