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Vendor
Hanser
Friederike Barakat
Original language
German
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Georg

Barbara Honigmann

When Barbara Honigmann tells the story of her father’s life – a German and an emigrant, a Jew and a communist – her unparalleled voice turns a personal family saga into a story of the German twentieth century.

»My father always married thirty-year-old women. He grew older, but his wives always stayed at around thirty… Their names were Ruth, Litzy (my mother), Gisela and Liselotte…« This is the private side of a life story that takes the reader halfway around the world. It starts in Frankfurt, goes to the Odenwald school, Paris, London and Berlin, features internment in Canada, and after emigration, the path back to the GDR. During all this, it documents the main character’s recurring experience: »At home, a man; on the street, a Jew.«

Laconically and wittily, sadly and thrillingly, Barbara Honigmann tells the story of her German-Jewish-communist clan: a slim but out-standing book about Germany and a moving profession of love to an ex-ceptional man: »Georg, my father.«

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Book

Published 2019-01-01 by Carl Hanser Verlag

Main content page count: 160 Pages

Comments

»A daughter rediscovers her father through writing. She delves

into his life using anecdotes and loving detail, bringing to life

not only her family but also pre-war German and post-war GDR

history. But, above all, it is a book that makes us realise more

than ever the extent to which we remain forever connected to

our parents and their life stories.« Manuele Reichart, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

»This is how effortlessly and lovingly a biographer should

approach her subject while knowing how to take liberties.«

Sibylle Birrer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung