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Things That Disappear

AUTHOR Erpenbeck, Jenny; Beals, Kurt
PUBLISHER New Directions Publishing Corporation (10/07/2025)
PRODUCT TYPE Paperback (Paperback)

Description
The bestselling and award-winning German author Jenny Erpenbeck has gained international praise for her novels including Visitation, Kairos, and Go, Went, Gone. Things that Disappear is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance on scales both large and small. The things that disappear in these pages range from everyday objects such as socks and cheese to close friends and the social norms of common courtesy, to sites and objects resonant with East German history, such as the Palace of the Republic or the lines of sight now blocked by new construction in Berlin. Erpenbeck asks: "Is there some kind of perpetrator who makes things that I know cherish and disappear?" These things disappear, and yet do they really? Do they remain in our memories more fully than if they continued to exist? Translated beautifully by Kurt Beals, Things that Disappear follows on the heels of Erpenbeck's Man Booker-Prize winning novel Kairos and offers a window into a renowned writer's sense of the past, and of her own self as a writer.
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Product Format
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780811238113
ISBN-10: 0811238113
Binding: Paperback or Softback (Trade Paperback (Us))
Content Language: English
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Page Count: 96
Carton Quantity: 132
Product Dimensions: 4.50 x 0.50 x 7.00 inches
Weight: 0.15 pound(s)
Feature Codes: Price on Product
Country of Origin: US
Subject Information
BISAC Categories
Literary Collections | European - German
Literary Collections | Essays
Literary Collections | Women Authors
Dewey Decimal: 834.914
Library of Congress Control Number: 2025029634
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publisher marketing
The bestselling and award-winning German author Jenny Erpenbeck has gained international praise for her novels including Visitation, Kairos, and Go, Went, Gone. Things that Disappear is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance on scales both large and small. The things that disappear in these pages range from everyday objects such as socks and cheese to close friends and the social norms of common courtesy, to sites and objects resonant with East German history, such as the Palace of the Republic or the lines of sight now blocked by new construction in Berlin. Erpenbeck asks: "Is there some kind of perpetrator who makes things that I know cherish and disappear?" These things disappear, and yet do they really? Do they remain in our memories more fully than if they continued to exist? Translated beautifully by Kurt Beals, Things that Disappear follows on the heels of Erpenbeck's Man Booker-Prize winning novel Kairos and offers a window into a renowned writer's sense of the past, and of her own self as a writer.
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Translator: Beals, Kurt
In 2010 Kurt Beals was a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award for Anja Utler's engulf enkindle, and in 2012 he won the first ever German Book Office Translation Prize. His translation of Regina Ullmann's The Country Road was published by New Directions in 2015.
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Paperback