The Unfinished
Published on 6. July 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
332 pages
978-1-80309-228-7 (ISBN)
Description
A profound novel detailing the brutal legacy of Nazism on four generations of a family in Germany.
Komotau, the Czech Republic, late summer, 1945. Four women-seventy-year-old Johanna, her two daughters Hanna and Maria, and Hanna's daughter Anna-are ordered by the new Czech authorities to leave their homes and assemble with other Germans at the local train station. They are given thirty minutes-the "wild expulsions" of Sudeten Germans have begun. But where is Anna?
Witnessing the revenge lynching of SS and suspected collaborators on her walk home, she arrives in Komotau to find her family gone. The trek takes the older women via Munich, then Dresden and Magdeburg, to an outpost in the far northwest of the Soviet zone where they settle as farm laborers. Once united again, their hope of one day returning to the heimat-homeland-is both a source of strength and a burden, choking attachments to new surroundings and neighbors. This conflict will prove to be the story of their lives, as well as both the joy and ruin of Anna's son.
A tale of four generations told in Reinhard Jirgl's unique and subversively expressive idiom, The Unfinished plays out between the ruins of Nazi Germany and the rise and fall of communist East Germany, the birth of the Berlin Republic, and the shadow of a new millennium.
Komotau, the Czech Republic, late summer, 1945. Four women-seventy-year-old Johanna, her two daughters Hanna and Maria, and Hanna's daughter Anna-are ordered by the new Czech authorities to leave their homes and assemble with other Germans at the local train station. They are given thirty minutes-the "wild expulsions" of Sudeten Germans have begun. But where is Anna?
Witnessing the revenge lynching of SS and suspected collaborators on her walk home, she arrives in Komotau to find her family gone. The trek takes the older women via Munich, then Dresden and Magdeburg, to an outpost in the far northwest of the Soviet zone where they settle as farm laborers. Once united again, their hope of one day returning to the heimat-homeland-is both a source of strength and a burden, choking attachments to new surroundings and neighbors. This conflict will prove to be the story of their lives, as well as both the joy and ruin of Anna's son.
A tale of four generations told in Reinhard Jirgl's unique and subversively expressive idiom, The Unfinished plays out between the ruins of Nazi Germany and the rise and fall of communist East Germany, the birth of the Berlin Republic, and the shadow of a new millennium.
Reviews / Votes
"One of the most important voices in contemporary German literature." * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung * "Never . . . has postwar Germany been portrayed so convincingly as in Jirgl's novel The Unfinished." * Die Zeit *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Greenford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 202 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
417 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80309-228-7 (9781803092287)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Reinhard Jirgl was born in Berlin in 1953. While his writing was subject to restriction in the GDR, six completed manuscripts were ready for publication when the border between East and West Germany opened. Iain Galbraith is a Scottish poet and translator who lives in Germany.
Content
Chapter 1 In Front of Dogs & Human Beings
Chapter 2 Under Glass
Chapter 3 Hunting Hunting
Chapter 2 Under Glass
Chapter 3 Hunting Hunting