Abt. Geschichtswissenschaft

Kairos. Roman from Jenny Erpenbeck

“Gehen, ging, gegangen”, recommended to me by the late Alf Lüdtke (1943-2019) during a coffee break at a workshop, was the first novel by Jenny Erpenbeck I had ever read. Since then, she has been one of my favourite German novelists. “Kairos” is at once a love story and a story of madness, a meditation on the rise and fall of the GDR, and a portrait of late socialist Berlin — beautifully written and deeply thought-provoking. Awarded the Booker Prize in 2024, the novel confirms my sense that Jenny Erpenbeck may one day be a Nobel Prize winner.

More Ideas & Insights recommendations could be reached at our Public History Unit webpage every week.