International Booker Prize 2024 | In ‘Kairos’, Jenny Erpenbeck offers an East German perspective
The HinduPublished : May 22, 2024 17:33 IST - 5 MINS READ Ask your average German about Jenny Erpenbeck, and they may very well respond, “Jenny who?” Yet the contemporary German author has made a name for herself beyond Germany’s borders; she’s showered with prizes and has even been predicted to one day win the Nobel Prize in literature. Yet, in keeping with the pattern, the novel’s English translation has garnered acclaim beyond Germany’s borders, earning her, and her translator Michael Hofmann, the prestigious International Booker Prize. ‘East German’ problems Perhaps there is something to Erpenbeck’s feeling that the wall that once separated East and West Germany never really fell, that West German cultural perspectives continue to dominate public discourse. Her 2015 bestseller Gehen, ging, gegangen, about the hopeless situation of asylum-seekers in Berlin, was shortlisted for the year’s German Book Prize; the 2017 English translation by Bernofsky was longlisted for the 2018 International Booker Prize.
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German author Jenny Erpenbeck wins International Booker Prize for tale of tangled love affair
The Independent
Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’ wins the International Booker Prize 2024
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