Jenny Erpenbeck's highly acclaimed novel Go, Went, Gone was a New York
Times notable book and launched one of Germany's most admired writers
into the American spotlight. In the New Yorker, James Wood wrote: "When
Erpenbeck wins the Nobel Prize in a few years, I suspect that this novel
will be cited."
On the heels of this literary breakthrough comes , a book of personal,
profound, often humorous meditations and reflections. Erpenbeck writes,
"With this collection of texts, I am looking back for the first time at
many years of my life, at the thoughts that filled my life from day to
day."
Starting with her childhood days in East Berlin ("I start with my life
as a schoolgirl ... my own conscious life begins at the same time as the
socialist life of Leipziger Strasse"), Not a Novel provides a glimpse
of growing up in the GDR and of what it was like to be twenty-two when
the wall collapsed; it takes us through Erpenbeck's early adult years,
working in a bakery after immersing herself in the worlds of music,
theater, and opera, and ultimately discovering her path as a writer.
There are lively essays about her literary influences (Thomas Bernhard,
the Brothers Grimm, Kafka, and Thomas Mann), unforgettable reflections
on the forces at work in her novels (including history, silence, and
time), and scathing commentaries on the dire situation of America and
Europe today. "Why do we still hear laments for the Germans who died
attempting to flee over the wall, but almost none for the countless
refugees who have drowned in the Mediterranean in recent years, turning
the sea into a giant grave?"
With deep insight and warm intelligence, Jenny Erpenbeck provides us
with a collection of unforgettable essays that take us into the heart
and mind of "one of the finest and most exciting writers alive" (Michel
Faber).
