Following the sudden death of his best friend, the narrator of The Executor is called to Turin to resolve the will and literary estate of this famous writer and professor. It is a considerable undertaking, as Rudolf had amassed not only a rather extensive collection of house pets (a goose, several ducks, tortoises, and a peacock—to say nothing of Caesar, the old dog), but also a voluminous library of books and research materials. Somewhere under this mountain of papers lies Rudolf’s magnum opus, a work so great that the writer maintained it would be the Òworld’s last novel.Ó But the narrator has other obstacles to overcome: The trio of women Rudolf left behind—the widow, the secretary, and the lover—are all looking for something the narrator isn’t sure he can give. If he had known what awaited him in Turin, would he ever have gone?

The Executor: A Comedy of Letters

Literature & Fiction

KRÜGER, MICHAEL

Contemporary

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

The end of the novel : a novella ;

Quartet Books

The Man in the Tower

The narrator, a writer, disillusioned after taking nine years to write his first novel, finds more and more reasons to cut pages from his manuscript

The End of the Novel

George Braziller

A lonely German painter living in the south of France is drawn into a web of mystery by an enigmatic woman who disappears after the death of a policeman

The Man in the Tower: A Novel

Willson, A. Leslie

This is the first comprehensive collection of Kruger's poems to appear in English. The poems are drawn from ten collections published over the last two decades. Kruger explores two themes in particular: the state of German culture and the fate of poetry in what Hegel termed the "Age of Prose".

Diderot's Cat: Selected Poems

Poetry

Richard, a German anthropologist who had travelled in Brazil during the Nazi era with a Jewish assistant, Leo Himmelfarb, and used Himmelfarb's work to make his own reputation, receives a letter from his former companion on his eightieth birthday and must come to terms with the fact that his life and career are based on a lie

Himmelfarb: A Novel

A new collection of poems by the German poet Michael Kruger, At Night, Beneath Trees is his second volume of poetry to appear in English. This latest selection, drawn from his 1993 and 1996 collections, marks an important shift in his work; moving away from the deeply philosophical dialogues of his earlier work, Kruger engages here in reflective, lyrical musings on the meaning of existence. Kruger searches for truth in the most ordinary of everyday events. Letters written to friends, a few moments spent looking up at the trees, statements by a television commentator all become occasions for questioning the meaning of things. Disillusioned by religion, history, and other forms of human knowledge, Kruger casts about for one irrefutable explanation, the "saving thread," that will resolve all his doubts. Pervaded by a peaceful stillness, yet resoundingly powerful, these poems speak of the fear and confusion of living in a chaotic, meaningless world. Their attempt at finding meaning captures the mystery at the heart of life, and when the "...mental fog rise[s] / because no questions pester / the answer," they offer a stolen glimpse of the unknowable.

At Night, Beneath Trees: Selected Poems

Dove, Richard

George Braziller, Inc.

Seasonal Time Change: Selected Poems (The Seagull Library of German Literature)

Our twice-yearly daylight savings holiday, in which we faithfully, collectively adjust our clocks, is purely human tampering with the calendar. Yet it is a practice that is embedded in nature’s principles, even as we exact more sunlight for ourselves in an over-organized, technological world. Mirroring this dichotomy, Michael Krüger brings us Seasonal Time Change, a collection of poems where an exacting eye is cast on nature. The poet’s perspective is observant, stringent, and very human, bringing both intellect and emotion to the page. Translated by Joseph Given, the verses are in turn scrutinizing, wistful about the brutality of nature, and rejoicing in the simple wonder of life.             Bearing witness to Krüger’s interactions with renowned poets and artists through his time as director of Hanser Publishing, proximity and relationships are ongoing themes in this volume. Together, the poems remind us of our own mortality and of the finiteness of nature, but also our need for celebration even—perhaps especially—in times of darkness.

Seagull Books

The thirteen stories of Michael Krüger’s The God behind the Window capture the poignancy and cynicism of late life through tales of misanthropic old men full of the mixture of wisdom and melancholy that so often accompanies old age. In Krüger’s stories, world-weary characters seek—and only temporarily find—solace in nature and culture, rendering their search for a better life simultaneously comedic and heart wrenching. From a solitary hiker in the Swiss Alps to the book’s eponymous shut-in, these aging malcontents are continually surprised by the unexpected interventions of a world that has come to seem predictable. Krüger captures this stage in life masterfully, contrasting the deeply personal emotions of affection, melancholy, and longing with an indifferent world. The resulting stories are lyrical, philosophical, and tender despite their cynicism.  

The God Behind the Window (The German List)

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