"I a-m g-o-i-n-g h-o-m-e. The keys of the typewriter she writes on have already been rubbed smooth, the individual letters can scarcely be distinguished from one another. It is still the same typewriter she brought with her on that odyssey from Berlin to Prague, from Prague to Moscow, and then from Moscow to Ufa in Bashkiria, and near the end of the war, when her son could already speak Russian fluently, back again to Moscow and finally, Berlin. She carried the typewriter in her hand through many streets of many cities, held it on her lap in overcrowded trains, gripping its handle tightly when in this or that foreign place, alone on an airfield or at a train station, she didn't know where to go, when she'd lost her husband in the throng, or else his duties took him elsewhere and he'd boarded a different train. This typewriter was her wall when the corner of a blanket on a floor was her home, with this typewriter she had typed all the words that were to transform the German babarians back into human beings and her homeland back into a homeland."
From Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
Jenny Erpenbeck (*1967)
Another female writer who read at the EdBookFest - Jenny Erpenbeck, born in East-Berlin, former German Democratic Republic. And she, too, comes from a family of writers: her grandfather Fritz Erpenbeck was an actor, author and founder of the journal Theater der Zeit. His wife Hedda Zinner was a former actress who turned to politics becoming a left-wing journalist. During WWII they emigrated to Vienna and Prague, moving on to the Soviet-Union in 1935, returning to East-Berlin after the war. Jenny's father John Erpenbeck, born in Ufa, Russia, is a physicist and author and her mother Doris Kilias was a translator of Arabic literature (e.g. Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz). Nevertheless, Jenny first learned the trade of a bookbinder before turning to the theatre. She started at the Humboldt University of Berlin, changed to study Music Theatre Director at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory and completed her studies in 1994. As a freelance director she directed at various opera houses in Germany and Austria. About that time she started also to write. Her first very surreal novel The Old Child gained her all attention right away. Her second novel The Book of Words turned out even more surreal and dreamlike. Her absurd style had Michel Faber write in a review: "[Jenny] is one of the finest, 
most exciting authors alive" (The Guardian, 30/10/2012). And it was Michel himself interviewing Jenny at the EdBookFest. Her third novel Visitation was the focus of the evening - another enigmatic novel with a (haunted?!) house as a framing character, its changes of ownership mirroring the political transitions spanning several decennials. "When you come from the East, when you've seen your country disappear, you understand how quickly things can change. Suddenly, everything seems surrealistic!" (EdBookFest, 2011). As the former GDR with its dark secrets 'haunts' her first two books, her third novel is set on a bigger canvas - eventually, the change of the GDR becomes only one of various transitions. Seemingly, those changes and their accompanying losses are 'haunting' Jenny herself. Her fourth novel bears the title: Things that Disappear...
most exciting authors alive" (The Guardian, 30/10/2012). And it was Michel himself interviewing Jenny at the EdBookFest. Her third novel Visitation was the focus of the evening - another enigmatic novel with a (haunted?!) house as a framing character, its changes of ownership mirroring the political transitions spanning several decennials. "When you come from the East, when you've seen your country disappear, you understand how quickly things can change. Suddenly, everything seems surrealistic!" (EdBookFest, 2011). As the former GDR with its dark secrets 'haunts' her first two books, her third novel is set on a bigger canvas - eventually, the change of the GDR becomes only one of various transitions. Seemingly, those changes and their accompanying losses are 'haunting' Jenny herself. Her fourth novel bears the title: Things that Disappear...
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