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2010 Longlist

New Lives: The Youth of Enrico Turmer in letters and prose

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ABOUT
THE BOOK

East Germany, January 1990. Enrico Türmer, man of the theater, secret novelist, turns his back on art and signs on to work at a newly started newspaper. Freed from the compulsion to describe the world, he plunges into everyday life. Under the guidance of his Mephisto, the ever-present Clemens von Barrista, the former aesthete suddenly develops worldly ambitions even he didn’t know he had.

This upheaval in our hero’s life, mirrored in the vaster upheaval gripping Germany itself after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth pangs of a reunified nation, is captured in the letters Enrico writes to the three people he loves most: his sister, Vera; his childhood friend Johann; and Nicoletta, the unattainable woman of his dreams. As he discovers capitalism and reports on his adventures as a businessman, he peels away the layers of his previous existence, in the process creating the thing he has dreamed of for so long—the novel of his own life, in whose facets contemporary history is captured. Thus Enrico comes to embody all the questionable aspects not only of life in the old Germany, but of life in the Germany just taking form.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Ingo
Schulze

Ingo Schulze was born in Dresden in 1962 and studied classical philology at the University of Jena. His first book, 33 Moments of Happiness, won two prestigious German literary awards, the Alfred Döblin Prize and the Ernst Willner Prize for Literature. In 2007 he was awarded both the Leipzig Book Fair Prize and the Thuringia Literature Prize. He is a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature and lives in Berlin.

Ingo Schulze was born in Dresden in 1962 and studied classical philology at the University of Jena. His first book, 33 Moments of Happiness, won two prestigious German literary awards, the Alfred Döblin Prize and the Ernst Willner Prize for Literature. In 2007 he was awarded both the Leipzig Book Fair Prize and the Thuringia Literature Prize. He is a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature and lives in Berlin.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR John
E. Woods

John Edwin Woods (August 16, 1942 – February 15, 2023) was an American translator who specialized in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr. He also translated all the major novels of Thomas Mann, as well as works by many other German writers.

John Edwin Woods (August 16, 1942 – February 15, 2023) was an American translator who specialized in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr. He also translated all the major novels of Thomas Mann, as well as works by many other German writers.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

This is a novel about democratic transformation. The hero writes letters about his eventful life after the fall of the Berlin Wall to three persons, his sister, a childhood friend and the woman of his dreams. His life is presented in the upheaval grasping Germany itself.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
Germany
Original Language
German
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Translator
John E. Woods

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