Go Went Gone Paperback Jenny Erpenbeck Susan Bernofsky Translation by Jenny Erpenbeck, Susan Bernofsky (translation) 9780811225946, 0811225941, B06XYZH65V instant download after payment.

In a powerful response to a growing crisis, Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel explores questions about race, immigration, refugees & European identity. 

Translated by Susan Bernofsky.

Newly retired Richard spends his days cooking, pottering in his garden and walking around his home city of Berlin. Following an excursion to Alexanderplatz, he befriends a group of African men whose camp is being pulled down by the authorities. These asylum seekers have found their way to Berlin from all over Africa by way of Libya & then Italy. They have no ‘right’ to be in Berlin, & they must follow the rules if they have any hope in being allowed to remain.

"Erpenbeck’s novel makes a powerful case for Richard’s evolution, & by the book’s close we understand that his own life — so long controlled & closed down — has been emotionally opened and revitalized by his new path ... timely political subject, distressing & confounding, could easily have worked against its success: The risk of didacticism is high ...Erpenbeck’s rigor, her crystalline human insight, her exhilaratingly synthetic imagination... combine to make Go, Went, Gone an important novel, both aesthetically & morally."  -  Claire Messud, The New York Times Book Review

Jenny Erpenbeck was born in Berlin, Germany, in March 1967.  She is the author of The Old Child & The Book of Words (2008), Visitation (2010) & The End of Days (2014) - winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize - all published by Portobello. Her fiction is published in 14 languages.