Things That Disappear

The bestselling and award-winning German author Jenny Erpenbeck has gained international praise for her novels including Visitation, Kairos, and Go, Went, Gone. Things that Disappear is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance on scales both large and small. The things that disappear in these pages range from everyday objects such as socks and cheese to close friends and the social norms of common courtesy, to sites and objects resonant with East German history, such as the Palace of the Republic or the lines of sight now blocked by new construction in Berlin. Erpenbeck asks: “Is there some kind of perpetrator who makes things that I know cherish and disappear?” These things disappear, and yet do they really? Do they remain in our memories more fully than if they continued to exist? Translated beautifully by Kurt Beals, Things that Disappear follows on the heels of Erpenbeck’s Man Booker-Prize winning novel Kairos and offers a window into a renowned writer’s sense of the past, and of her own self as a writer.

From the 2024 winner of the International Booker Prize, a collection of short essays on the places, people, rituals and objects that slip into the realm of memory. The Palace of the Republic, that once housed the East German parliament, is demolished. A grandmother's laughter passes from life into memory. Furniture that once made a home is taken to the tip. A friendship drops into silence. Old ways are erased by the new. In this fascinating collection of essays, most of them written for her column in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Jenny Erpenbeck meditates, with a sense of both deep melancholy and wry humour, on the disappearance and impermanence of things. Whether recalling the shop that used to darn tights in the days before you could just buy a new pair, reflecting on changing social attitudes, or considering the mysterious vanishing of a piece of cheese from her fridge, Jenny Erpenbeck's sharp intelligence, eye for telling detail, and her nuanced perspective on her country's past and present imbue these brief pieces with lasting power.

From the 2024 winner of the International Booker Prize, a collection of short essays on the places, people, rituals and objects that slip into the realm of memory. The Palace of the Republic, that once housed the East German parliament, is demolished. A grandmother's laughter passes from life into memory. Furniture that once made a home is taken to the tip. A friendship drops into silence. Old ways are erased by the new. In this fascinating collection of essays, most of them written for her column in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Jenny Erpenbeck meditates, with a sense of both deep melancholy and wry humour, on the disappearance and impermanence of things. Whether recalling the shop that used to darn tights in the days before you could just buy a new pair, reflecting on changing social attitudes, or considering the mysterious vanishing of a piece of cheese from her fridge, Jenny Erpenbeck's sharp intelligence, eye for telling detail, and her nuanced perspective on her country's past and present imbue these brief pieces with lasting power.

The bestselling and award-winning German author Jenny Erpenbeck has gained international praise for her novels including Visitation , Kairos , and Go, Went, Gone . Things that Disappear is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance on scales both large and small. The things that disappear in these pages range from everyday objects such as socks and cheese to close friends and the social norms of common courtesy, to sites and objects resonant with East German history, such as the Palace of the Republic or the lines of sight now blocked by new construction in Berlin. Erpenbeck asks: "Is there some kind of perpetrator who makes things that I know cherish and disappear?" These things disappear, and yet do they really? Do they remain in our memories more fully than if they continued to exist? Translated beautifully by Kurt Beals, Things that Disappear follows on the heels of Erpenbeck's Man Booker-Prize winning novel Kairos and offers a window into a renowned writer's sense of the past, and of her own self as a writer.