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  • Things That Disappear by Jenny Erpenbeck book cover
  • Things That Disappear by Jenny Erpenbeck book cover
  • Things That Disappear by Jenny Erpenbeck book cover
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Things That Disappear

by Jenny Erpenbeck

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Small losses, public memory

$15.21 USD
$25.35 USD $15.21 USD
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Paperback New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Author recognition

    Jenny Erpenbeck — 2024 Booker International Prize winner

    The metadata identifies Jenny Erpenbeck as a winner of the 2024 Booker International Prize.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Small losses, public memory

In this collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces, disappearance moves between the ordinary and the historically charged: socks and cheese sit alongside lost friends, changing expectations of courtesy, and places tied to East German history. Berlin’s altered sightlines bring the city’s physical changes into the same frame as personal memory. Erpenbeck’s questions connect these different scales of loss, asking what remains when something is gone and whether memory can make its presence more vivid. The book also turns toward the past and the writer’s own sense of herself, giving its varied subjects a shared point of inquiry.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in linked short prose and miniature forms.
  • Readers drawn to writing about memory, loss, and change.
  • Readers interested in East German history and Berlin’s changing landscape.

Themes

Disappearance and lossMemory and persistenceEast German historyUrban changeWriting and self-perception

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

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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