Kirjahaku

An intriguing book of short stories by a prizewinning new German writer. Each episode in this dazzling debut collection captures the spark in some tiny detail of everyday life in contemporary St. Petersburg and fans it into a story that flares with comedy, surreal passion, heartbreaking indifference and mad Russian excess. There's a Mafia shoot-out in a disco, as told by a gun-toting Walter Mitty simultaneously thrilled and horrified by the carnage he is creating. There's a returning exiled writer so desperate to keep his reputation alive, now that he is no longer a professional dissident, that he will do anything to hold the interest of his retinue of reporters and cameras. There are three devils who appear for an evening at the steam bath, their revelries ending in cannibalism - or is the watching manager just mad? St. Nicholas comes back as a rich American. There is a gallery opening that gives new meaning to the term "installation." And on and on... These are sad, whimsical, macabre, bleakly funny stories, all told in a playful and voluptuous prose that is itself an homage to the great Russian masters whom Schulze is honoring - from Gogol to Pasternak, from Chekhov to Nabokov.

From the author of 33 Moments of Happiness, a first novel about the people in a deadbeat little town in East Germany that makes us understand, as nothing else, what life has been like since the fall of the Berlin Wall." "At first, there appears to be nothing so unusual about what happens to Renate and Martin, Barbara and Frank, Raffael and Jenny, as they look for love, for jobs, for some means, honest or devious, of understanding or forgetting the past. And yet, what is gradually revealed in the minutiae of their everyday experiences is the collapse of an entire world and the dramatic fault line that has run through so many East German lives since 1990.

A heartbreaking and funny first novel from the author of 33 Moments of Happiness which makes us understand what life has been like since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Altenburg in Thuringia is a provincial flyspeck on the map of the new Germany. With laconic wit and a tenderness immune to sentimentality Schulze starts to tell us ‘simple stories’, in pitch-perfect prose reminiscent of Raymond Carver, about seemingly unconnected people. By the end, we know we have been listening to a novel in glittering fragments spun by a master – a complete tragicomedy of ordinary people in Nowheresville caught up in the last great cataclysm of the twentieth century.

Each episode in this dazzling debut collection captures the spark in some tiny detail of everyday life in contemporary St Petersburg and fans it into a story that flares with comedy, surreal passion, heartbreaking indifference and mad Russian excess. There’s a Mafia shoot-out in a disco, as told by a gun-toting Walter Mitty simultaneously thrilled and horrified by the carnage he is creating. There are three devils who appear for an evening at the steam bath, their revelries ending in cannibalism – or is the watching manager just mad? These are sad, whimsical, macabre, bleakly funny stories, all told in a playful and voluptuous prose that is itself a homage to the great Russian masters whom Schulze is honouring – from Gogol to Pasternak, from Chekhov to Nabokov.

Efteråret 2009 vil også i Danmark fokusere på 20-året for Murens Fald med alt hvad dertil hører. Tiderne Skifter markerer begivenheden med udgivelsen af denne sprudlende og løsslupne tyske bestseller-roman som netop tager sin begyndelse i den turbulente sommer i 1989 med et østeuropa i oprør. Den unge Adam lever som skrædder i DDR laver tøj til yngre kvinder og er sådan set godt tilfreds med sit liv til trods for de begrænsninger jerntæppet sætter. Hans kæreste Evelyn længes dog efter muligheden for at tage en uddannelse og at rejse. Da hun en dag finder Adam i en noget kompromitterende aktivitet med en af sine kunder beslutter hun sig for at afslutte deres forhold og rejse til Ungarn med sin veninde Simone og dennes fætter Michael fra Vestberlin. Dette kick-starter en række tragikomiske begivenheder heriblandt møder med fremmede gamle venner grænsevagter og bureaukrater det hele fortalt med befolkningens voksende utilfredshed med DDR og det stalinistiske styre som bagtæppe. Adam søger desperat efter Evelyn og hendes to rejsekammerater fra Lake Ballaton i Ungarn til østrig og slutteligt til Vesttyskland i håbet om at vinde hende tilbage. Adam og Evelyn rammer præcist og grotesk morsomt stemningen i tidsånden - følelsen af usikkerhed og muligheden for forandring - der netop fandtes i sensommeren og efteråret i 1989 blandt østtyskere. Evelyn er på en gang tiltrukket af Vesttysklands løfter om frihed men samtidig også splittet i beslutningen om at forlade sit land; Adam foretrækker sit liv i øst men er fristet af Evelyn der begærer ”Paradiset i vest”. Med bibelske referencer og allegorier konstruerer Schulze en moderne version af udvisningen fra Edens Have. Ved ankomsten til Vesttyskland oplever både Adam og Evelyn problemer forbundet med at tilpasse sig det nye og anderledes liv. Adam afskriver det pengedrevne forbrugssamfund og længes efter sit gamle liv i øst selvom det liv ikke længere findes på grund af den fredfyldte revolution. Evelyn fastholder troen på trods af hendes evige tvivlen på sig selv og på sit og Adams forhold. Først da hun afslører at hun er gravid mander Adam sig op og begynder for alvor at etablere en ny tilværelse en ny identitet og en fremtid til ham og hans familie.

Das ostthüringische Altenburg – einst kaiserliche Pfalz und herzogliche Residenz, vergrößert durch Plattenbausiedlungen, umgeben von Chemie-Industrie, von Braunkohle- und Uranabbau, gesäumt von lieblicher Burgenlandschaft – ist der Schauplatz von Ingo Schulzes Roman. In 29 scheinbar ?einfachen Geschichten?, in vielen kleinen Alltagsbegebenheiten, offenbart sich das Zusammenstürzen einer ganzen Welt, jener dramatische Bruch, der sich nach 1989 durch so viele ostdeutsche Biographien zieht. Ingo Schulze zeichnet seine von der Weltgeschichte überrumpelten Protagonisten mit unfehlbarer Präzision, mit Humor und Gefühl – und ganz ohne jedes Pathos. ?Altenburg, die kleine Stadt in der ostdeutschen Provinz, hat große Chancen, zu einem Ort zu werden wie Uwe Johnsons Jerichow oder Martin Walsers Philippsburg. Etwas Besseres konnte der deutschen Literatur nicht passieren.? Thomas Steinfeld in der ›FAZ‹