The Book of Words

by Jenny Erpenbeck, Susan Bernofsky (Translator)

Overview

A searing novella about coming of age in a land of tyranny, by one of Germany's most brilliant young authors.

In The Book of Words, Jenny Erpenbeck captures with amazing virtuosity the inner life of a young girl who survives the totalitarian regime of a curiously unnamed South American country (most likely Argentina during its "dirty war"). Raised by parents whose real identity ends up shocking her, the girl comes of age in a country where gunshots are mistaken for blown tires, innocent citizens are dragged off buses, and tortured and disappeared friends and family return to visit her from the dead.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811217064
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	12/17/2007
Series:	New Directions Paperbook Series , #1092
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

An epic storyteller and arguably the most powerful voice in contemporary German literature, Jenny Erpenbeck was born in East Berlin in 1967. She studied theater at the Humboldt University in Berlin and directed operas in the nineties. She is also author of such books as The Old Child & Other Stories, The Book of Words, and The End of Days.

Susan Bernofsky is the acclaimed translator of Hermann Hesse, Robert Walser, and Jenny Erpenbeck, and the recipient of many awards, including the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize and the Hermann Hesse Translation Prize. She teaches literary translation at Columbia University and lives in New York.

Editorial Reviews

"Jenny Erpenbeck should be praised for asking us to learn from the marginalized what the majority apparently will not see."

London Times Literary Supplement

"Jenny Erpenbeck is a rising star of the German literary scene."

Cosmopolitan

"Her restrained unvarnished prose is overwhelming."

Nicole Krauss

"Jenny Erpenbeck is a rising star of the German literary scene."

Cosmopolitan