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August (Paperback)
Christa Wolf; Translated by Katy Derbyshire
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R251
Discovery Miles 2 510
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Christa Wolf was arguably the best-known and most influential
writer in the former East Germany. Having grown up during the Nazi
regime, she and her family were forced to flee their home like many
others, nearly starving to death in the process. Her earliest
novels were controversial because they contained veiled criticisms
of the Communist regime which landed her on government watch lists.
Her past continued to permeate her work and her life, as she said,
“You can only fight sorrow when you look it in the eye.” August
is Christa Wolf’s last piece of fiction, written in a single
sitting as an anniversary gift to her husband. In it, she revisits
her stay at a tuberculosis hospital in the winter of 1946, a real
life event that was the inspiration for the closing scenes of her
1976 novel Patterns of Childhood. This time, however, her fictional
perspective is very different. The story unfolds through the eyes
of August, a young patient who has lost both his parents to the
war. He adores an older girl, Lilo, a rebellious teenager who
controls the wards. Sixty years later, August reflects on his life
and the things that she taught him. Written in taut, affectionate
prose, August offers a new entry into Christa Wolf’s work and,
incidentally, her first and only male protagonist. More than a
literary artifact, this new novel is a perfectly constructed story
of a quiet life well lived. For both August and Christa Wolf, the
past never dies.
In the tradition of such masterpieces of historical fiction as Mary
Renault's "The King Must Die" East German writer Christa Wolf
movingly retells the story of the fall of Troy - but from the point
of view of the woman whose visionary powers earned her contempt and
scorn. Written as a result of the author's Greek travels and
studies, "Cassandra" speaks to us in a pressing monologue whose
inner focal points are patriarchy and war. In the four accompanying
pieces, which take the form of travel reports, journal entries, and
a letter, Wolf describes the novel's genesis. Incisive and
intelligent, the entire volume represents an urgent call to examine
the past in order to insure a future.
Christa Wolf tried for years to find a way to write about her
childhood in Nazi Germany. In her 1976 book Patterns of Childhood,
she explained why it was so difficult: "Gradually, over a period of
months, the dilemma has emerged: to remain speechless or to live in
the third person, these seem to be the options. One is impossible,
the other sinister." During 1971 and 1972 she made thirty-three
attempts to start the novel, abandoning each manuscript only pages
in. Eulogy for the Living, written over the course of four weeks,
is the longest of those fragments. In its pages, Wolf recalls with
crystalline precision the everyday details of her life as a
middle-class grocer's daughter, and the struggles within the
family--struggles common to most families, but exacerbated by the
rise of Nazism. And as Nazism fell, the Wolfs fled west, trying to
stay ahead of the rampaging Red Army. Though Wolf abandoned this
account, it stands, in fragmentary form, as a testament to her
skill as a thinker, storyteller, and memorializer of humanity's
greatest struggles.
During a 1960 interview, East German writer Christa Wolf was asked
a curious question: would she describe in detail what she did on
September 27th? Fascinated by considering the significance of a
single day over many years, Wolf began keeping a detailed diary of
September 27th, a practice which she carried on for more than fifty
years until her death in 2011. The first volume of these notes
covered 1960 through 2000 was published to great acclaim more than
a decade ago. Now translator Katy Derbyshire is bringing the
September 27th collection up to date with One Day a Year-a
collection of Wolf's notes from the last decade of her life. The
book is both a personal record and a unique document of our times.
With her characteristic precision and transparency, Wolf examines
the interplay of the private, subjective, and major contemporary
historical events. She writes about Germany after 9/11, about her
work on her last great book City of Angels, and also about her
exhausting confrontation with old age. One Day a Year is a
compelling and personal glimpse into the life of one of the world's
greatest writers.
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Cassandra (Paperback)
Christa Wolf
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R341
R277
Discovery Miles 2 770
Save R64 (19%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Cassandra, daughter of the King of Troy, is endowed with the gift
of prophecy but fated never to be believed. After ten years of
brutal war, Troy has fallen to the Greek army, and Cassandra is now
a prisoner of war, shackled outside the gates of a foreign
fortress, Agamemnon's Mycenae. Through memories of her childhood
and reflections on the long years of conflict, Cassandra pieces
together the legendary fall of her city. A woman living in an age
of heroes, Cassandra reveals the untold personal story that has
been lost among the triumphs of Achilles and Hector.
A fragmentary work that stands as a testament to Wolf's skill
as a thinker, storyteller, and memorializer of humanity’s
greatest struggles. Christa Wolf tried for years to find a way to
write about her childhood in Nazi Germany. In her 1976 book
Patterns of Childhood, she explained why it was so difficult:
“Gradually, over a period of months, the dilemma has emerged: to
remain speechless or to live in the third person, these seem to be
the options. One is impossible, the other sinister.” During 1971
and 1972 she made thirty-three attempts to start the novel,
abandoning each manuscript only pages in. Eulogy for the
Living, written over the course of four weeks, is the longest of
those fragments. In its pages, Wolf recalls with crystalline
precision the everyday details of her life as a middle-class
grocer’s daughter, and the struggles within the
family—struggles common to most families, but exacerbated by the
rise of Nazism. And as Nazism fell, the Wolfs fled west, trying to
stay ahead of the rampaging Red Army.
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August (Hardcover)
Christa Wolf; Translated by Katy Derbyshire
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R419
Discovery Miles 4 190
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Christa Wolf was arguably the best-known and most influential
writer in the former East Germany. Having grown up during the Nazi
regime, she and her family were forced to flee their home like many
others, nearly starving to death in the process. Her earliest
novels were controversial because they contained veiled criticisms
of the Communist regime which landed her on government watch lists.
Her past continued to permeate her work and her life, as she said,
"You can only fight sorrow when you look it in the eye."
"August" is Christa Wolf's last piece of fiction, written in a
single sitting as an anniversary gift to her husband. In it, she
revisits her stay at a tuberculosis hospital in the winter of 1946,
a real life event that was the inspiration for the closing scenes
of her 1976 novel "Patterns of Childhood." This time, however, her
fictional perspective is very different. The story unfolds through
the eyes of August, a young patient who has lost both his parents
to the war. He adores an older girl, Lilo, a rebellious teenager
who controls the wards. Sixty years later, August reflects on his
life and the things that she taught him.
Written in taut, affectionate prose, "August" offers a new entry
into Christa Wolf's work and, incidentally, her first and only male
protagonist. More than a literary artifact, this new novel is a
perfectly constructed story of a quiet life well lived. For both
August and Christa Wolf, the past never dies.
First published in 1963, in East Germany, "They Divided the Sky"
tells the story of a young couple, living in the new, socialist,
East Germany, whose relationship is tested to the extreme not only
because of the political positions they gradually develop but, very
concretely, by the Berlin Wall, which went up on August 13,
1961.
The story is set in 1960 and 1961, a moment of high political
cold war tension between the East Bloc and the West, a time when
many thousands of people were leaving the young German Democratic
Republic (the GDR) every day in order to seek better lives in West
Germany, or escape the political ideology of the new country that
promoted the "farmer and peasant" state over a state run by
intellectuals or capitalists. The construction of the Wall put an
end to this hemorrhaging of human capital, but separated families,
friends, and lovers, for thirty years.
The conflicts of the time permeate the relations between
characters in the book at every level, and strongly affect the
relationships that Rita, the protagonist, has not only with
colleagues at work and at the teacher's college she attends, but
also with her partner Manfred (an intellectual and academic) and
his family. They also lead to an accident/attempted suicide that
send her to hospital in a coma, and that provide the backdrop for
the flashbacks that make up the narrative.
Wolf's first full-length novel, published when she was
thirty-five years old, was both a great literary success and a
political scandal. Accused of having a 'decadent' attitude with
regard to the new socialist Germany and deliberately
misrepresenting the workers who are the foundation of this new
state, Wolf survived a wave of political and other attacks after
its publication. She went on to create a screenplay from the novel
and participate in making the film version. More importantly, she
went on to become the best-known East German writer of her
generation, a writer who established an international reputation
and never stopped working toward improving the socialist reality of
the GDR.
During a 1960 interview, East German writer Christa Wolf was asked
a curious question: would she describe in detail what she did on
September 27th? Fascinated by considering the significance of a
single day over many years, Wolf began keeping a detailed diary of
September 27th, a practice which she carried on for more than fifty
years until her death in 2011. The first volume of these notes
covered 1960 through 2000 was published to great acclaim more than
a decade ago. Now translator Katy Derbyshire is bringing the
September 27th collection up to date with One Day a Year a
collection of Wolf's notes from the last decade of her life. The
book is both a personal record and a unique document of our times.
With her characteristic precision and transparency, Wolf examines
the interplay of the private, subjective, and major contemporary
historical events. She writes about Germany after 9/11, about her
work on her last great book City of Angels, and also about her
exhausting confrontation with old age. One Day a Year is a
compelling and personal glimpse into the life of one of the world's
greatest writers.
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