London/Berlin. The writer, born in East Berlin in 1967, is the first German to receive the prestigious award for her novel “Kairos”.
Jenny Erpenbeck was the first German to receive the International Booker Prize. The opera writer and director received this year’s award for the English translation of her “Kairos” by Romano together with translator Michael Hofmann, with whom he shares the monetary prize of 50,000 pounds (around 58,500 euros). Hofmann was the first male translator to receive the award, which has been given since 2016. “I am very honored,” Erpenbeck said at the awards ceremony on Tuesday night in London.
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The novel revolves around the love affair between a young student and a much older married writer in the last years of the 19th century. GDR in East Berlin. However, the relationship between the two, inspired by their shared love of music and art, is falling apart, just as the state around them is falling apart.
Jenny Erpenbeck: Kairos. Penguin, 384 pages, 22 euros.
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The jury said the book was exceptional because it was “at once beautiful and unpleasant, personal and political”. Erpenbeck invites us to make a connection between generation-defining and even destructive political developments cruel love affair. The International Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in Britain. Works in a foreign language that have been translated into English are honored. dpa