Jenny Erpenbeck

Not A Novel is a collection of the sort of pieces – some profound, others incidental – that naturally arise as part of a professional writing career. Many are concerned with growing up in the GDR and the experience of having the society that formed your worldview disappear…. At a time when former East German states vote in increasing numbers for the right-wing party Alternativ für Deutschland, Erpenbeck’s voice is all the more important for its ability to draw attention to a parallel world, one that sought to call a new future into being, rather than harking back to a darker past.

In this attentive prose, in her desire to map stories that are suppressed and rhythms of the heart that keep being forgotten, Erpenbeck is one of the most vital writers working today.

Erpenbeck has emerged as one of the most original voices in contemporary European letters. Not a Novel is not just autobiographical. There are fascinating reflections on German literature — Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Hans Fallada, Thomas Mann and Walter Kempowski’s war novel All for Nothing — as well as exquisite descriptions of the writing process.

To read Erpenbeck’s musings on the majesty of folk tales or on life in the shadow of the Stasi is to begin to understand the forces that propelled her to become the deft, fearless author she is today.

Erpenbeck’s anger is palpable and this collection reveals both her creative process and the injustices that drive her to write.

Erpenbeck is a virtuoso whose eye for detail depends entirely on a refusal to write what’s easy or straightforward. It’s a perspective conditioned by losing one identity and watching an entire country disappear in the name of freedom.

The texts collected here come from many eras and many moments and seem to fall around the reader like bits of glass….There is something terrifying but liberating about seeing a person construct herself and her history in a way that feels so opposite to everything we are told.

These essays, lectures and musings from the ever-elegant German writer Jenny Erpenbeck cover life, art and society. Jumbled together are thoughts on language, history and freedom, a moving piece – in the shape of an inventory – on her mother’s death, and finally, on Germany’s treatment of refugees. Clear-eyed and perceptive, Erpenbeck’s writing packs an emotive punch.

One of the pleasures of reading Not a Novel is just that—it’s not a novel. Each piece stands on its own and is dense and lucid, demanding pause and reflection….Her words stay with you.

This collection of essays, memoirs and critical pieces forms an intellectual biography of Europe’s most history-obsessed writer. Beginning with her childhood in East Berlin in the early ‘60s and ‘70s, the book moves in concentric circles, from the intimate and understatedly moving to the moment History collides with her life. A powerful voice singing the past into the present’s melody.

An ideal introduction to the life and work of an exceptional artist.

As this collection makes clear, hers is a life (and writing-life) well worth examining.

The impact is of a master at work—Erpenbeck ought to be considered for the Nobel.

The most profound, intelligent, humane, and important writer of our times. Forget the nombrilistes writing about themselves who have taken up so much of the conversational space. Jenny Erpenbeck is where it is all happening. She watches, notes, records, and interprets the world, not just herself in it. This is real literature: alive, vital, necessary, witty, beautiful, transformative.

Fearless, playful, incisive. Erpenbeck is unique.

Wonderful, elegant, and exhilarating—ferocious as well as virtuosic.

Her restrained, unvarnished prose is overwhelming.

Jenny Erpenbeck’s writing is a lure that leads us—off-center, as one travels into a vortex—into the most haunted and haunting territory.

Beautifully haunting.

The plight of asylum seekers as told through a retired university professor…Very moving.

Acclaimed German novelist Jenny Erpenbeck has gone further than most in examining the ephemeral nature of human life. A heart-rending plea for universal tolerance and respect.

Erpenbeck’s prose, intense and fluent, is luminously translated by Susan Bernofsky.

Erpenbeck’s metaphysical fictions are strange and beautiful, stern and compelling. This devastating work is as light as a dream and as unrelenting as real life…No reader can feel untouched by Erpenbeck’s inspired, and inspiring, vision.

This slim novel packs a mighty punch and richly deserves its numerous accolades.

The End of Days is a brilliant study of loss and mourning. … Erpenbeck’s novel chronicles the twentieth century in a way that other Familienromane do not.

One of the most significant German-language novelists of her generation, Erpenbeck follows up the celebrated novel Visitation with a heady conceit located somewhere between Cloud Atlas and Groundhog Day

Erpenbeck’s writing is a lure that leads us–off-centre, as into a vortex–into the most haunted and haunting territory.

Dreamlike, almost incantatory prose.

The brutality of her subjects, combined with the fierce intelligence and tenderness at work behind her restrained, unvarnished prose, is overwhelming.

A true miniaturist.

Visitation adds to her compact scenarios something intangible and enormous, which works on them from outside their modest frames with a force eroding human history and its claims to establish durable meaning.

Erpenbeck will get under your skin.

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