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New Books in Translation
The Boxer Jurek Becker (Arcade, 2002)
Jurek Becker (1937-1997) was a rare figure in German literature. A committed socialist, he held an East German visa but was permitted to live in the West. An Auschwitz survivor, he was one of the few German writers to address the experience of the Holocaust directly, most famously in his first novel, Jacob the Liar. The Boxer, a kind of sequel to this work, tells the story of Aaron Blank, who sets out to find his son Mark after being released from a concentration camp at the end of World War II. Book Magazine writes: "Narrated with Kafkaesque flatness and developed with a Beckettian obsessiveness, the book is a remarkably subtle story of post-traumatic persistence." The Boxer was translated into English by Alessandra Bastagli. City with Houses by Ernst-Wilhelm H?ndler (Northwestern University Press, 2002)
In this short-story collection, Ernst-Wilhelm H?ndler (born 1953) leads the reader into a series of possible worlds in the twilight between the real and the unreal: a haunting city in which books control the state and economy, another plagued by corporate mergers and buyouts, and yet another where a girl's diary tells of her sexual adventures before they happen. First published in Germany in 1995, City with Houses was widely applauded by critics and the public. H?ndler will be introduced at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair as one the most startling new voices writing in Germany today. The English translation is by Martin Klebes. Summerhouse, Later Judith Hermann (HarperCollins, 2002) Judith Hermann (born 1970), one of a host of young authors exploring love and loss in contemporary Germany has dazzled critics both inside and outside the country with her short-story collection Summerhouse, Later. Against the tumultuous backdrop of reunified Berlin Hermann?s characters struggle with the weight of memory and the search for transcendence. One woman wrestles with family secrets, while another indulges in an all-night adventure among the denizens of the Berlin art world. In the title story, a young member of the bohemian set takes refuge from ennui in the bourgeois dream of a summer house outside the city. Summerhouse, Later was translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo. The Adventures of a Bed Salesmen Michael Kumpfm?ller (Picador USA 2003)
Michael Kumpfm?ller (born 1961), another leading light of Berlin?s new literary scene, crosses the east-west divide with his first novel, The Adventures of a Bed Salesmen, which Der Spiegel has called "one of the best, funniest and saddest German books for a long time.? Kumpfm?ller?s dubious hero, Heinrich Hampel, grows up in the eastern city of Jena launches a career as a philanderer in the Soviet Union then recasts himself in West Germany as a bed salesman. That business having failed, Hampel crosses the German border ? from West to East ? to escape his creditors. In this twist on the traditional Bildungsroman, the protagonist never discovers true fulfillment, yet his innocent approach to life makes his story at once poignant and entertaining. The English translation by Anthea Bell is forthcoming. Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art. A Biography, Hermann Kurzke (Princeton University Press, 2002)
This book, published in Germany in 1999, brought author Hermann Kurzke, professor of contemporary literature at the University of Mainz, to a wider audience. Already author of numerous books on novelist Thomas Mann, editor of a collection of his essays, and a regular contributor to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Kurzke uses meticulous detail ? the color of the curtain around Mann?s baby crib, his enjoyment of the music of Jack Benny ? to bring to life for the reader a reclusive man. Mann?s works ? Buddenbrooks, for which he won the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature; Death in Venice; and The Magic Mountain, perhaps his best-known work ? have become classics of contemporary literature. Mann left Germany in 1933 after persecution by the Nazis. Living first in Switzerland and then in California, he continued producing works of fiction, essays and criticism until his death in 1955 in Zurich. Kurzke?s work has been called not only thorough and a good read, but one of the best biographies of Mann. A review in the Times Literary Supplement called it "a monument of good sense and sensitivity. . . . A humane account of a human being, vulnerable, obsessive, not overly likeable, and driven by an extraordinary talent.? The book was translated into English by Leslie Wilson. Inside 9-11: What Really Happened, editors Stefan Aust and Cordt Schnibben (St. Martin's Press, 2002)
There is no dearth of retrospectives of the September 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath. But in this crowded field, the journalists of Der Spiegel news magazine have turned to the shoe-leather journalism that is their trademark to reconstruct the events of that day between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. In what the Christian Science Monitor called a ?seamlessly blended and carefully organized? account, the book places the reader inside the towers and on board the airplanes using interviews with survivors, firefighters and investigators, the phone calls from trapped office workers and doomed passengers to loved ones, even air traffic communications. The book includes an interview with Tanja, a German tourist who was waiting for an elevator to the observation platform of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. It looks at the hijackers? background and possible motives through interviews with their family members and friends, and examines the so-called Hamburg cell. "Describing in detail the preparation and execution of an act of such cold-blooded calculation may help us understand exactly what sort of enemy threatens us,'' the preface explains. The book is the result of reporting by more than a dozen Spiegel journalists and is tied together by Spiegel editor-in-chief Stefan Aust and journalist Cordt Schnibben. The English translation is by Paul De Angelis and Elisabeth Kaestner. Albert Einstein, Mileva Maric: The Love Letters, edited by J?rgen Renn and Robert Schulmann (Princeton University Press, 2001)
In another Princeton University Press publication, readers are allowed to eavesdrop on young Albert and Mileva during their courtship and first years of marriage around the turn of the 20th century. But this is not just any couple in love. Albert is Albert Einstein and Mileva is Mileva Maric, his first wife. Using 54 letters written between 1897, when the two met as students, and 1903, the book illuminates Einstein?s intellectual development before his ?Miraculous Year,? 1905, as well as his loving but ultimately difficult relationship with Maric, a mathematician and physicist. According to a New York Times book review, The Love Letters "Will further undermine the stereotype and reward all who delight in the company of young people deliciously in love. We all have trunks in the attic harboring letters that reveal the same impatience with parents, the same youthful na?vet?, passion and delight. But this was Einstein, and that makes all the difference." The letters are edited by J?rgen Renn and Robert Schulmann of Boston University, coeditors of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Shawn Smith translated.
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