Go, Went, Gone

Description

'A powerful, candid novel ... Europe's outstanding literary seer, Jenny Erpenbeck's new novel resonates with an unexpected simplicity that is profound, unsettling and subtle ... Erpenbeck's powerful tale, delivered in a wonderfully plain, candid tone, is both real and true. It will alert readers, make us more aware and, it is to be hoped, more human.' - Guardian In this radical, exquisite novel, the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize turns her attention to the contemporary refugee crisis and our responsibility in its creation. Richard has spent his life as a professor at the university, immersed in the world of books and ideas, but now he is retired, his books remain in their packing boxes and his ideas about how society works begin to change. One day, he notices a group of African men staging a protest on the Alexanderplatz. His interest is piqued and he visits the tent city they've set up. He meets Yussuf from Mali, Ali from Chad, Osarobo from Niger and Raschid, Yaya and Abdusalam. He fills his previously empty days helping his new friends fill out forms, finding them work, unofficially helping their official German teacher and learning about the intricacies of asylum law in Germany. But the laws of his land appear designed to prevent the people he has connected with from ever finding a home alongside him. At once a passionate contribution to the debate on race, privilege and nationality and a beautifully written examination of an ageing man's quest to find meaning in his life, Go, Went, Gone showcases a writer at the height of her powers.

Jenny Erpenbeck is the author of The Old Child & The Book of Words (2008), Visitation (2010) and The End of Days (2014, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize), all published by Portobello. Her fiction is published in fourteen languages. Susan Bernofsky has translated works by Robert Walser, Franz Kafka, and many others. The recipient of the 2006 Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize and the 2012 Hermann Hesse Translation Prize, she is the author of Foreign Words: Translator-Authors in the Age of Goethe and is currently at work on a biography of Robert Walser. Her translation of Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days was awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, the Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize, and the Ungar Award.