Mussel Feast - Softcover

Birgit Vanderbeke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1908670088 ISBN 13: 9781908670083

Publisher: Peirene Press, 2013

Synopsis

The modern German classic that has shaped an entire generation.

A mother and her two teenage children sit at the dinner table. In the middle stands a large pot of cooked mussels. Why has the father not returned home? As the evening wears on, we glimpse the issues that are tearing this family apart.

"I wrote this book in August 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I wanted to understand how revolutions start. It seemed logical to use the figure of a tyrannical father and turn the story into a German family saga."

- Birgit Vanderbeke

About this title

About the Author

Birgit Vanderbeke, born in 1956, is one of Germany's most successful literary authors. She has written 12 novels. The Mussel Feast was her first publication and won the most prestigious German language literature award, The Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. The book was published in 1989 and has never been out of print since. It has been translated into all major European languages, including French, Spanish and Italian.

Review

'We are playing catch-up here with something of a contemporary European classic.' David Mills, SUNDAY TIMES ------ 'The novella brilliantly renders both the power of the revolutionary moment and the uncertainty of the future it unleashes.' Jane Yager, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ------ 'This is one of those books that doesn't tell us what to think, but sets us off thinking ... Who writes this kind of nuanced work in Britain?' Nicholas Lezard, GUARDIAN ------ 'Sinister, funny and heartening, this taut novella reflects, within the microcosm of the family, the dissolution of the East German state, with an insight, economy and controlled fury that have made it a modern German classic.' Chris Schuler, INDEPENDENT ------ 'There is a political edge to Vanderbeke's provocative examination of patriarchal violence, and part of the power of this darkly comic tale is how well it succeeds as an allegory for political tyranny.' Lucy Popescu, INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY ------ 'Astute, darkly funny, provocative, often uncomfortable in its devastating depiction of patriarchal oppression but ultimately uplifting.' Pam Norfolk, LANCASHIRE EVENING POST ------ 'An extraordinary book, the story unspooled with masterful restraint, and written with simplicity and precision.' Francesca Segal, STANDPOINT

Edition details

• Publisher: Peirene Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1908670088
• ISBN 13: 9781908670083
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 105