Jenny Erpenbeck:
"Heimsuchung"
The novel’s theme is the identity of a location. During my research journey to Warsaw, I asked myself whether identity actually exists – here, where no stone was left unturned. Is identity based on the latitudes and longitudes on a map, the air above the place, unchanged then as now, the weather that has no doubt remained basically similar – or does it reside in the buildings, streets and people, ultimately disappearing with them? I cannot answer the question. At least I find old chestnut trees in Krasinski Park, where the historian Ringelblum crawled out of a sewer – trees whose branches perhaps overlap with what Ringelblum saw, so bridging the time between us. I walk, walk, walk – the former flea market, the poor area of the ghetto, finally the “Umschlagplatz”, where Jews were assembled for deportation, a few old walls, a group of students and high rise blocks where the rail tracks used to lead to Treblinka. I ask myself whether I would want to live there, in the high rise buildings, looking down on the Umschlagplatz, with those tracks in the foundations. I ask myself whether one can build over memories, or whether they are made of a material that leaves its invisible trace deep inside the concrete for all time, even when they have disappeared from memory. I ask myself whether it is an affront to fill such a place with forgetful life, or perhaps a consolation – and cannot answer the question.
Jenny Erpenbeck
Heimsuchung (novel)
192 pages, 12.1 x 21.3 cm
hard back with dust cover
€ 17.95 (D) / sFr 32.90 / € 18.50 (A)
ISBN 978-3-8218-5773-2
February 2008
Worldwide copyright: Eichborn
The novel’s theme is the identity of a location. During my research journey to Warsaw, I asked myself whether identity actually exists – here, where no stone was left unturned. Is identity based on the latitudes and longitudes on a map, the air above the place, unchanged then as now, the weather that has no doubt remained basically similar – or does it reside in the buildings, streets and people, ultimately disappearing with them? I cannot answer the question. At least I find old chestnut trees in Krasinski Park, where the historian Ringelblum crawled out of a sewer – trees whose branches perhaps overlap with what Ringelblum saw, so bridging the time between us. I walk, walk, walk – the former flea market, the poor area of the ghetto, finally the “Umschlagplatz”, where Jews were assembled for deportation, a few old walls, a group of students and high rise blocks where the rail tracks used to lead to Treblinka. I ask myself whether I would want to live there, in the high rise buildings, looking down on the Umschlagplatz, with those tracks in the foundations. I ask myself whether one can build over memories, or whether they are made of a material that leaves its invisible trace deep inside the concrete for all time, even when they have disappeared from memory. I ask myself whether it is an affront to fill such a place with forgetful life, or perhaps a consolation – and cannot answer the question.
Jenny Erpenbeck
Heimsuchung (novel)
192 pages, 12.1 x 21.3 cm
hard back with dust cover
€ 17.95 (D) / sFr 32.90 / € 18.50 (A)
ISBN 978-3-8218-5773-2
February 2008
Worldwide copyright: Eichborn
Cover of the novel: "Heimsuchung"