Jenny Erpenbeck becomes first German writer to win International Booker Prize
Erpenbeck's fourth novel, Kairos, translated by Michael Hofmann, wins the £50,000 prize; set against the collapse of East Germany, it's the tale of a messy love affair
Jenny Erpenbeck (57) has become the first German writer to win the International Booker Prize, which was announced by Eleanor Wachtel, Chair of the 2024 judges, at a ceremony sponsored by Maison Valentino and held at London’s Tate Modern on Tuesday night (May 21). The £50,000 prize for her fourth novel Kairos (Granta Books, distributed by Penguin Random House in India), written in German and translated by Michael Hofmann, is to be divided equally between the author and the translator. Incidentally, Hofmann has become the first male translator to win the prize, which has so far been dominated by women writers and translators.
Erpenbeck, a former opera director, was born in East Berlin, which was part of East Germany until the country disappeared with German reunification in 1990. Her novel, set against the collapse of East Germany, follows a destructive affair between a young woman and an older man; the two lovers seem to embody East Germany’s crushed idealism. Centred on freedom, loyalty, love, power as well as hope and disappointment, the novel is a “richly textured evocation of a tormented love affair, the entanglement of personal and national transformations”, said Wachtel. Hofmann’s translation “captures the eloquence and eccentricities of Erpenbeck’s writing, the rhythm of its run-on sentences, the expanse of her emotional vocabulary”, she added.
A bleak and beautiful novel
The Booker Prize Foundation describes the novel as “an intimate and devastating story of the path of two lovers through the ruins of a relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history.” Natasha Walter, in her review of the novel in The Guardian, wrote: “Kairos is one of the bleakest and most beautiful novels I have ever read,” wrote “The dark nature of [the] relationship finds expression in Erpenbeck’s characteristically unyielding style. The novel is written in the present tense, a technique that can be flattening when used by lesser writers. In an elegant translation by Michael Hofmann, here it creates a claustrophobic intensity.”
Kairos, Erpenbeck’s fourth novel, is ‘an intimate and devastating story of the path of two lovers through the ruins of a relationship’, set against the collapse of East Germany. Photos courtesy of the Booker Prize Foundation
The novel’s protagonist, 19-year-old Katherina marries Hans, a writer in his 50s, who is already married. They do typical couple things: have sex, go on walks, and listen to music. But the relationship soon becomes violent and cruel, reflecting the political turmoil in Germany at the time. In his review, critic John Powers wrote: “Erpenbeck understands that great love stories must be about more than just love. Even as she chronicles Katharina’s and Hans’ romance in all its painful details, their love affair becomes something of a metaphor for East Germany, which began in hopes for a radiant future and ended up in pettiness, accusation, punishment and failure.”
In a statement, Watchel praised the way the novel used the personal story as a way of examining the broader political machinations of Germany. “The self-absorption of the lovers, their descent into a destructive vortex, remains connected to the larger history of East Germany during this period, often meeting history at odd angles.”
‘One of the finest writers alive’
Erpenbeck’s first novel, The Old Child and The Book of Words (2008), revolves around a child who loses her memory. Described by Michel Faber as “one of the finest, most exciting authors alive,” she won the 2015 Independent foreign fiction prize — the precursor to the International Booker Prize — for her second novel, The End of Days, a beautiful meditation on the different possible lives of one woman, born a Jewish child in the Hapsburg Empire that explores how death is a minefield we sidestep every day. In 2018, Erpenbeck was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for her third novel Go, Went, Gone, about Richard, a widower and retired classics professor, who comes to the rescue of asylum seekers in Europe.
Hofmann has translated dozens of books from German into English, including authors such as Franz Kafka and Hans Fallada. A 2016 interview in The Guardian noted his ability to “single-handedly revive an author’s reputation,” calling him “arguably the world’s most influential translator of German into English.”
The other finalists for the 2024 International Booker Prize were Not a River by Selva Almada, translated from Spanish by Annie McDermott; Crooked Plow by Itamar Viera Junior, translated from Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz; Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong, translated from Korean by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae; What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma, translated from Dutch by Sarah Timmer Harvey; and The Details by la Genberg, translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson. Bulgarian writer and poet Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel won last year’s International Booker Prize for the novel Time Shelter.