Life After Forty

When Christine’s husband of ten years dumps her over the phone while she watches a Hugh Grant film she is sent spinning on a cathartic, self-medicated journey to the land of self-acceptance and self-reliance. Surrounded by her sister and a strong support group of friends, Christine learns how to deal with the horrors of dating, finding new appliances, and the exhilarating feeling of shopping without consequence.

An uproarious look at the suddenly single life of a divorcee, Dora Heldt’s first book to appear in English captures the zeitgeist of the new millennium with searing insight while never deigning to take itself too seriously. Sparkling dialogue and unforgettable characters create a vibrant world of sardonic, take-no-prisoners women who hold their own in a world geared toward acceptance of their younger selves. Not since Bridget Jones’ Diary or Sex in the City has anything like Life After Forty so accurately and thoroughly expressed the modern female point of view with such startling clarity.

Dora Heldt was born on the North Sea island of Sylt, Germany. She works as a publisher’s sales representative and lives in Hamburg. Life After Forty is the first of her German bestsellers to be published in English.

Jamie Lee Searle is a freelance translator and reviewer of German-language literature for publications such as New Books in German. She lives in London and teaches German language and translation. Her thesis on Timothy Garton Ash was awarded with the 2010 Jethro Bithell Award, and she recently co-founded the publishing collective And Other Stories, which seeks to promote and publish international literature in translation in the UK.