Summary
The End of Days, by the acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, consists essentially of five “books,” each leading to a different death of the same unnamed woman protagonist. "How could it all have gone differently?" the narrator asks in the intermezzos. The first chapter begins with the death of a... Full description
Summary: |
The End of Days, by the acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, consists essentially of five “books,” each leading to a different death of the same unnamed woman protagonist. "How could it all have gone differently?" the narrator asks in the intermezzos. The first chapter begins with the death of a baby in the early twentieth-century Hapsburg Empire. In the next chapter, the same girl grows up in Vienna, but her strange relationship with a boy leads to death. In the next scenario, she survives adolescence and moves to Russia with her husband. Both are dedicated Communists, yet our heroine ends up in a labor camp. But her fate does not end there. . . |
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Item Description: |
Originally published in German as "Aller Tage Abend." |
Physical Description: |
239 pages ; 21 cm |
ISBN: |
9780811221924 (alk. paper) 081122192X (alk. paper) |
Author Notes: |
Jenny Erpenbeck was born on March 12, 1967 in East Berlin. She is a German director and writer. In Berlin she attended an Advanced High School, where she graduated in 1985. She then completed a two-year apprenticeship as a bookbinder before working at several theaters as props and wardrobe supervisor. From 1988 to 1990 Erpenbeck studied theatre at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1990 she changed her studies to Music Theater Director studying with Ruth Berghaus. After the completion of her studies in 1994 she spent some time as an assistant director at the opera house in Graz, where in 1997 she did her own productions of Schoenberg's Erwartung, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and a world premiere of her own piece Cats Have Seven Lives. As a freelance director, she directed in 1998 different opera houses in Germany and Austria, including Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Aachen, Acis and Galatea at the Berlin State Opera and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Zaide in Nuremberg/Erlangen. In the 1990s Erpenbeck started a writing career in addition to her directing. She is author of narrative prose and plays: in 1999, History of the Old Child, her debut; in 2001, her collection of stories Trinkets; in 2004, the novella Dictionary; and in February 2008, the novel Visitation. In March 2007, Erpenbeck took over a column by Nicole Krauss in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In 2015 won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize with her title The End of Days. (Bowker Author Biography) |