Kairos

Jenny Erpenbeck Press Reviews

Revelling in complexity and ambiguity, Erpenbeck knows that no one is all bad, no state all rotten, and she masterfully captures... existential bewilderment -- Anna Katharina Schaffner - TLS

In this granular and, at times, shockingly intimate narrative of an all-consuming love affair that ultimately turns abusive, Jenny Erpenbeck has written an allegory of her nation, a country that has ceased to exist -- East Germany. No writer on the world stage can make the texture and details of individual lives articulate so seamlessly and unobtrusively the way humans are subjects of, and subjected to, history. The ending is like a bomb thrown into your room -- you'll be reeling for days and weeks to come. -- Neel Mukherjee An ambitious story of love and betrayal - Irish Times

Erpenbeck is a writer with a roving, furious, brilliant mind. Kairos bears with it the absolute urgency of existential questions... Erpenbeck's handling of characters caught within the mesh (and mess) of history is superb. - Los Angeles Times

Erpenbeck is among the most sophisticated and powerful novelists we have. Clinging to the undercarriage of her sentences, like fugitives, are intimations of Germany's politics, history and cultural memory. It's no surprise that she is already bruited as a future Nobelist - New York Times

An intimate account of obsessive, transgressive passion. Erpenbeck writes masterfully about time - Harper's