Text: English, German (translation)

DISTANT LOVER

Literature & Fiction

Hein, Christoph

Contemporary

Pantheon

The Distant Lover

Pantheon Books

In “one of the most important German novels of recent years,”* a man, a town, and a country wrestle with fifty years of displacement and political upheaval
Provincial Guldenberg is still reeling from World War II when a flood of German refugees arrives from the east, Bernhard Haber’s family among them. Life is hard enough—Bernhard’s father has lost an arm and his carpenter’s income. But added to this injury comes an accumulation of insults, as the upright town turns hostile toward the newcomers. After a string of mysterious losses—from the killing of the boy’s dog to the unexplained death of his father—Bernhard is set on extracting revenge.
Rich with psychological insight, Christoph Hein’s acclaimed novel tells Bernhard’s story across nearly fifty years, chronicling his remarkable rise from victimized outsider to Guldenberg’s most prominent burgher. What began as a geographic dislocation evolves into a personal quest: the thirst for vengeance yields to the deeper need for a home and settling down proves more important than settling grudges. As the socialist state gives way to reunification and the capitalism of the 1990s, Hein’s masterful, multivoiced narration charts the transformation not just of one man but of an entire nation struggling to leave history behind and claim a home.—*The Times Literary Supplement (London)

Settlement: A Novel

Genre Fiction

Metropolitan Books

Set in 1968 Leipzig, Christoph Hein's novel is the story of Dallow, an apolitical academic who has just returned to civilian life after serving twenty-one months in prison. His crime: he was the substitute piano player in a student cabaret in which seditious verses were sung. Dallow returns to a life in of loveless sex, police harassment, and brutality, revealing how a corrupt system perverts all human interaction, and how lives are ruined by malicious caprice.

The Tango Player (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

Literary

Northwestern University Press

Everything you need: the 20 most important things in life (Hanser range)

Children's Books

dtv Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG

Horns Ende

Suhrkamp Verlag

Von allem Anfang an

Suhrkamp Verlag KG

Landnahme (German Edition)

Landnahme

Suhrkamp Verlag AG

Frau Paula Trousseau

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Books by Hein, Christoph