Sibylle Lewitscharoff:
Apostoloff
Two sisters. The one in the back seat, the other one in the passenger seat; the one sharp-tongued and pugnacious, the other one forgiving and courteous: They are traveling in modern-day Bulgaria. During the first half of their trip, they were a part of a glorious limousine convoy which was transporting the corpses of 19 exiled Bulgarians – who emigrated from Sofia to Stuttgart in the 1940s – back to their homeland. One of them is the sisters' father who died young. Now they are tourists being chauffeured by the forbearing Rumen Apostoloff. He would like to show the two of them his country's treasures: the pottery decorated with peacock eyes, the Black Sea coast, the architecture. Apostoloff's attempts at mediation between Sofia and Stuttgart initially have little success. Because the sisters' Bulgarian heritage weighs heavy – when the father, the successful doctor and melancholic immigrant, appears in their dreams, the end of the noose he hanged himself with still trails behind him. Sibylle Lewitscharoff's new novel is a tirade from the back seat, a daughter's acrimonious, dark, and out-and-out strange way of settling the score with her father and his homeland.
Together with her sister, the author traveled along the paths of her childhood memories and family history in Bulgaria, spoke with Bulgarian immigrants living in Germany, and researched historical material. Because she especially wanted to gain access through Bulgaria's religious life, she visited various monasteries as well as the 2006 Easter festivities in Sofia.
The author
Sibylle Lewitscharoff was born in Stuttgart in 1954. She majored in religious studies in Berlin and lived in Buenos Aires and Paris. Initially she worked as a bookkeeper in an advertising agency and then switched over to being a freelance author. She wrote radio features and radio dramas and invented a grammar board game. She published her first book in 1994. In 2007 Sibylle Lewitscharoff was awarded the “Preis der Literaturhäuser”, she received the "Leipzig Book Fair Prize" on March 12, 2009 and the "Berliner Literaturpreis" on March 3, 2010.
Sibylle Lewitscharoff
Apostoloff
Novel
Suhrkamp, February 2009
245 pages, hardcover
ISBN 978-3-518-42061-4
Two sisters. The one in the back seat, the other one in the passenger seat; the one sharp-tongued and pugnacious, the other one forgiving and courteous: They are traveling in modern-day Bulgaria. During the first half of their trip, they were a part of a glorious limousine convoy which was transporting the corpses of 19 exiled Bulgarians – who emigrated from Sofia to Stuttgart in the 1940s – back to their homeland. One of them is the sisters' father who died young. Now they are tourists being chauffeured by the forbearing Rumen Apostoloff. He would like to show the two of them his country's treasures: the pottery decorated with peacock eyes, the Black Sea coast, the architecture. Apostoloff's attempts at mediation between Sofia and Stuttgart initially have little success. Because the sisters' Bulgarian heritage weighs heavy – when the father, the successful doctor and melancholic immigrant, appears in their dreams, the end of the noose he hanged himself with still trails behind him. Sibylle Lewitscharoff's new novel is a tirade from the back seat, a daughter's acrimonious, dark, and out-and-out strange way of settling the score with her father and his homeland.
Together with her sister, the author traveled along the paths of her childhood memories and family history in Bulgaria, spoke with Bulgarian immigrants living in Germany, and researched historical material. Because she especially wanted to gain access through Bulgaria's religious life, she visited various monasteries as well as the 2006 Easter festivities in Sofia.
The author
Sibylle Lewitscharoff was born in Stuttgart in 1954. She majored in religious studies in Berlin and lived in Buenos Aires and Paris. Initially she worked as a bookkeeper in an advertising agency and then switched over to being a freelance author. She wrote radio features and radio dramas and invented a grammar board game. She published her first book in 1994. In 2007 Sibylle Lewitscharoff was awarded the “Preis der Literaturhäuser”, she received the "Leipzig Book Fair Prize" on March 12, 2009 and the "Berliner Literaturpreis" on March 3, 2010.
Sibylle Lewitscharoff
Apostoloff
Novel
Suhrkamp, February 2009
245 pages, hardcover
ISBN 978-3-518-42061-4
