A short life of the author
Jenny Erpenbeck (b. 12 March 1967) was born in East Berlin. Her grandmother was the communist writer Hedda Zinner, and her father was the physicist John Erpenbeck. She studied theatre at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler and worked as an opera director.
Life and Career
Heimsuchung (Visitation, 2008) — about a house by a lake outside Berlin whose occupants change across the twentieth century, from the Weimar Republic through Nazism, East Germany, and reunification — is a formally elegant novel about how history is inscribed in place.
Aller Tage Abend (The End of Days, 2012, English translation 2014) — about a woman who dies five times in five different versions of her life across the twentieth century — won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Hans Fallada Prize.
Gehen, ging, gegangen (Go, Went, Gone, 2015) — about a retired Berlin professor who becomes involved with African refugees — is her most socially engaged novel. Kairos (2021) — a love story set during the last years of East Germany — won the International Booker Prize in 2024.
Major Works and Themes
Erpenbeck writes about German history — particularly the experience of living through political upheaval — with formal inventiveness and moral seriousness.
Key Works
- The End of Days (2012)
- Kairos (2021) — International Booker Prize
Collecting Erpenbeck
German originals (Knaus, Penguin Verlag) are the primary collected form. English translations (New Directions, Granta) bring $15–$30.