Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

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About the Book

Kairos is the International Booker Prize–winning novel from acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann, that tells an intimate and devastating story of two lovers moving through the ruins of a relationship set against one of the most seismic periods in modern European history. The novel opens in the present, as Katharina learns of the long-expected but still shattering death of her one-time lover, Hans. Sifting through an archive of letters, diaries, and clippings that memorialize their affair, she, and the reader, are pulled back into the relationship as it was actually lived.

Katharina and Hans fall in love in the final years of the German Democratic Republic, she a nineteen-year-old student, he a married writer in his fifties, and their affair unfolds against the backdrop of a society whose socialist ideals have long since curdled into suffocating bureaucratic conformism. Written in relentless, unflinching present-tense prose, the novel tracks the daily tensions, intimacies, and reversals of their relationship with extraordinary precision, staying close to the apartments, cafés, city streets, and workplaces of East Berlin, even as the story becomes as much about power, art, and culture as it is about love. As the personal affair mirrors the slow, painful dissolution of an entire political system, Kairos poses searching questions about freedom, loyalty, memory, and how something that begins as love can curdle into something destructive, without ever offering easy or comfortable answers.

Why Choose This Book?

• Winner of the International Booker Prize 2024: The first book translated from German ever to win the prize.
• From Germany's most internationally renowned contemporary writer: Jenny Erpenbeck is widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated and powerful novelists working today.
• An award-winning translation: Michael Hofmann's translation was praised by the judges for capturing the eloquence and rhythm of Erpenbeck's distinctive prose.
• Both intensely personal and historically resonant: Weaves a private love story together with the collapse of East Germany's political system.
• Widely and internationally acclaimed: Praised by The New York Times and international critics for its luminous, emotionally rich prose.

About the Author: Jenny Erpenbeck

Jenny Erpenbeck was born in East Berlin in 1967 and is an acclaimed novelist, opera director, and playwright. She first trained as a bookbinder and worked as a theatre props manager before studying musical theatre direction and building a successful career as an opera director from the late 1990s. She published her debut novella, Geschichte vom alten Kind, in 1999, later translated into English as The Old Child. She was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2018 for Go, Went, Gone, before winning the prize outright in 2024 for Kairos, becoming the first German writer to receive the award.

Who Should Read This Book?

• Readers of literary fiction interested in history, memory, and political upheaval
• Fans of international and translated literature, particularly German literary fiction
• Readers who enjoyed Christa Wolf's The Quest for Christa T. or Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries
• Book club readers looking for a rich, discussion-worthy award winner
• Anyone interested in the personal and cultural history of East Germany and the fall of the GDR

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Order now and get Kairos — Jenny Erpenbeck's International Booker Prize–winning novel of love, history, and the slow dissolution of a divided Germany!