Erpenbeck gets into the Nobel conversation again

April 13, 2024 07:16 pm | Updated 07:16 pm IST - Bengaluru The path to the Nobel prize in literature is not paved with prizes of lesser stature, which you have to win before you get the Big One. Yet, with Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos short-listed for the International Booker, it is fair to assume the German author, a personal favourite, is a step closer to the prize everyone has been predicting for her. When the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz was shortlisted for the International Booker in 2005, there was much excitement in the Erpenbeck household. Erpenbeck’s Kairos is translated by Michael Hoffmann; it is written mainly in the present tense, giving those two words a descriptive edge as the relationship between a 19-year-old and her 53-year-old lover begins to crumble against the background of a crumbling East Germany. Kairos moves fast, so if you don’t grab the hair while he whizzes past, you lose the opportunity.