Jenny Erpenbeck, now 57, was 22 in 1989, when the Berlin Wall cracked by accident, then collapsed.
She was having a “girls’ evening out,” she said, so she had no idea what had happened until the next morning.
The country she knew, the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, remains a crucial setting for most of her striking, precise fiction.
It is now on the shortlist for the International Booker Prize and considered a favorite to win the award late next month.
In 2017, James Wood, The New Yorker’s book critic, called “Go, Went, Gone” underappreciated and predicted that Ms. Erpenbeck would win the Nobel Prize “in a few years.”
Persons:
Jenny Erpenbeck, ”, “, International Booker, James Wood, Erpenbeck
Organizations:
German Democratic, International, International Booker Prize, East
Locations:
German Democratic Republic, East Germany, Soviet, East German, Germany