In Times of Fading Light: A Novel (Lannan Translation Selection (Graywolf Hardcover)) - Hardcover

Ruge, Eugen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1555976433 ISBN 13: 9781555976439

Publisher: Graywolf Press, 2013

Synopsis

An enthrallingly expansive family saga set against the backdrop of the collapse of East German communism, from a major new international voice

* Over 450,000 copies sold in Germany alone * Rights sold in 20 countries * Winner of the German Book Prize * A PW "First Fiction" pick *

In Times of Fading Light begins in September 2001 as Alexander Umnitzer, who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, leaves behind his ailing father to fly to Mexico, where his grandparents lived as exiles in the 1940s.
The novel then takes us both forward and back in time, creating a panoramic view of the family's history: from Alexander's grandparents' return to the GDR to build the socialist state, to his father's decade spent in a gulag for criticizing the Soviet regime, to his son's desire to leave the political struggles of the twentieth century in the past.
With wisdom, humor, and great empathy, Eugen Ruge draws on his own family history as he masterfully brings to life the tragic intertwining of politics, love, and family under the East German regime.

About this title

About the Author

Eugen Ruge won the 2011 German Book Prize for In Times of Fading Light, his debut novel, which became a bestseller in Germany and has been translated into twenty languages. Anthea Bell is a prizewinning translator.

Reviews

*Starred Review* Ruge, son of a well-known East German historian, began his writing career in the GDR but fled to the West in 1988 because, as he put it, East Germany bored him and he couldn’t write about it. But he has finally been able to do so, and the result is a deeply personal Familiendrama that also manages to be a rather pointed political critique of East German society. In interviews, Ruge has made it clear that In Times of Fading Light is a very loosely fictionalized version of his own family’s story; he has also said that he could not write it until all the family members portrayed were dead. It is not hard to see why: though Ruge portrays all of his characters—from senile arty stalwart Wilhelm to Russian transplant Irina to straying professor Kurt—with great tenderness, his story is at its core a depiction of a family’s dissolution, the consequence of intergenerational conflict and bleak historical circumstances. There isn’t any nostalgia here, just a deeply plaintive examination of personal and political tragedy. --Brendan Driscoll

Edition details

• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555976433
• ISBN 13: 9781555976439
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304