Jenny Erpenbeck is one of Germany’s most celebrated authors. She’s written four novels that have been translated into English, a memoir, several short stories, plays, and a few librettos, including the one she finished just before she spoke.

Jenny writes about growing up in East Berlin and how her experience of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) shaped her worldview. Her novel, The End of Days won the Hans Fallada Prize and the International Foreign Fiction Prize while Go, Went, Gone, which prompted the critic James Wood to predict that she would one day win the Nobel Prize, won the Thomas Mann Prize and was longlisted for the Man Booker International. Her latest novel, Kairos, is about a love affair that crumbles while the East itself falls apart.

Listen to our conversation now.

How I Wrote This is presented by KnockAbout Media. Listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.

Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com