Books from Germany

Madonna in a Fur Coat tells the story of Raif Efendi, a quiet and seemingly unremarkable man whose inner life is revealed through a diary discovered by a colleague. The diary recounts his time in 1920s Berlin, where he meets Maria Puder, an independent and unconventional artist whose portrait captivates him. As their relationship develops, Raif experiences a profound and transformative love that challenges his understanding of himself and human connection. Through themes of loneliness, vulnerability, and emotional restraint, Sabahattin Ali portrays the tragedy of unexpressed feelings and the distance between a person’s outward appearance and inner world. The novel is a poignant reflection on love, missed opportunities, and the lasting impact of a brief but defining relationship.

In East Berlin in 1986, nineteen-year-old Katharina meets Hans, a married writer in his fifties, by chance on a bus. Drawn together by their shared passion for music, literature and art, they begin an intense affair that transforms both their lives. Initially filled with excitement and tenderness, their relationship gradually becomes increasingly controlling and destructive, as jealousy, manipulation and emotional cruelty undermine their intimacy. Meanwhile, the world around them is undergoing its own dramatic transformation. As the German Democratic Republic approaches collapse, the political ideals and certainties that have shaped their lives begin to crumble. Erpenbeck intertwines the deterioration of the couple’s relationship with the dissolution of East Germany, creating a powerful parallel between private disillusionment and national upheaval. Through precise, evocative prose, she examines the complicated relationship between love and power, the persistence of nostalgia, and the difficulty of recognising when devotion has become oppression. Winner of the 2024 International Booker Prize, Kairos is both an intimate portrait of a destructive relationship and a profound meditation on history, memory and the cost of holding on to the past