Raised by a harsh Jewish sculptor single mother who prioritizes her socialist party connections over her family in mid-20th-century East Berlin, Thomas is forced to abandon his dream of becoming a writer while his sister, Ella, becomes increasingly introverted in the face of a Stasi lodger's abuse. By the award-winning author of The Blindness of the Heart. 20,000 first printing.
Scientist Nelly Senff is desperate to escape her life in East Berlin. The father of her two children has supposedly committed suicide, and she wants to leave behind the prying eyes of the Stasi. But the West is not all she hoped for. Nelly and her children are held in Marienfelde, a refugee processing centre and no-manâe(tm)s-land between East and West. There she meets Krystyna, a Polish woman who hopes that medical treatment in the West will save her dying brother; Hans, a troubled actor released from prison in the East; and John, a CIA man monitoring the refugees for possible Stasi spies. All lives cross here, in this gateway to a new life. Now an award-winning film
The international phenomenon and winner of the German Book Prize. “A devastating novel about war, love, and the art of survival” (Marie Claire). Julia Franck’s unforgettable English-language debut, The Blindness of the Heart is a dark marvel of a novel by one of Europe’s freshest young voices—a family story spanning two world wars and several generations in a German family. In the devastating opening scene, a woman named Helene stands with her seven-year-old son in a provincial German railway station in 1945 amid the chaos of civilians fleeing west. Having survived with him through the horror and deprivation of the war years, she abandons him on the station platform and never returns. The story quickly circles back to Helene’s childhood with her sister Martha in rural Germany, which came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the First World War. Their father is sent to the eastern front, and their Jewish mother withdraws from the hostility of her surroundings into a state of mental confusion. As we follow Helene into adulthood, we watch riveted as the costs of survival and ill-fated love turn her into a woman capable of the unforgiveable. “Enthralling, richly imagined and remorseless.” —The New York Times Book Review “Spellbinding . . . The young woman at the center of Julia Franck’s acclaimed novel The Blindness of the Heart ranks among the most haunting characters to be found in European fiction about twentieth-century horrors . . . At times, the novel feels more like an eyewitness account than historical fiction.” —Vogue “Disturbing, original, and brilliant.” —Guardian (Best Books of 2009)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
“An ambiguous relationship is turned inside out in this intensely vivid novel . . . Kerninon’s novel charms and unsettles to an equal degree.” —Kirkus Reviews Winner of the 2018 Fénéon Literary Prize Helen and Franck, both born into high-ranking diplomatic families, meet in Rome as high-school students and immediately detect in each other the wounded child hidden beneath their gilded social status. Their relationship becomes a dangerous, explosive mix of love and friendship. Immediately after Helen’s graduation, they leave their past and family behind to move in together in her apartment in Amsterdam. While Helen immerses herself in her studies and embarks on a promising academic career, Frank, after a few difficult years, makes a spectacular debut on the Dutch Art scene with his first paintings. Helen remains faithfully by his side during his rise to fame, overseeing the domestic details of his life in apparent total self-abnegation. Are introverted Helen and flamboyant Franck who they really appear to be? Are they victims or monsters? Kerninon’s English language debut, full of masterfully orchestrated twists and turns, leaves these simple distinctions behind, and progresses into far more fascinating terrain. “Julia Kerninon offers up a hypersensitive novel, with chiseled sentences and a melancholy tone. I adored this uncommon love.” —Elle “Complex and evocative . . . [A] portrait of the inequalities inherent in each relationship, and the emotional burden that is often placed on women in order to keep these relationships afloat.” —Châtelaine “Kerninon’s perceptive unfolding of Helen’s pains in elegant prose makes for a poignant portrait of buried frustrations. Readers looking for a slow burn will enjoy this tragic novel.” —Publishers Weekly
Following Julia Strachey's death, her life-long friend Frances Partridge was presented with an extraordinary assortment of her papers. Combining material from this source and extracts from the correspondence between the two friends, this book presents an account of the life of a remarkable woman.
Recognising strangeness in familiar objects, the present in the past, the construed in what is authentic -- the four masterly photographers show excerpts from our world in which the boundary between reality and imagination becomes blurred. From fleeting everyday scenes to mysterious happenings and historical events, they reveal a complex and multi-layered reality. Thomas Demand, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Andreas Gursky and Jeff Wall use the proximity to reality and the momentary nature of photography in order to create their idiosyncratic viewpoints of reality. What is real? They play with the viewers' perceptions, irritate and invite them to an individual interpretation of what is shown. This exclusive volume presents the works of the stars of the contemporary international photography scene magnificently and in clearly narrated texts.
An emotional and at times tragic conclusion to the Liberty Sands Trilogy, It's Never Too Late To Say... uncovers terrible family secrets that have long been buried. Holly Wilson has it all: a beautiful baby daughter, a son embarking on a new career, a new job in TV and an adoring boyfriend, Philippe, but her world is about to turn upside down
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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