Neue Leben

East Germany, January 1990. Enrico Türmer, man of the theater, secret novelist, turns his back on art and signs on to work at a newly started newspaper. Freed from the compulsion to describe the world, he plunges into everyday life. Under the guidance of his Mephisto, the ever-present Clemens von Barrista, the former aesthete suddenly develops worldly ambitions even he didn’t know he had.

This upheaval in our hero’s life, mirrored in the vaster upheaval gripping Germany itself after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth pangs of a reunified nation, is captured in the letters Enrico writes to the three people he loves most: his sister, Vera; his childhood friend Johann; and Nicoletta, the unattainable woman of his dreams. As he discovers capitalism and reports on his adventures as a businessman, he peels away the layers of his previous existence, in the process creating the thing he has dreamed of for so long — the novel of his own life, in whose facets contemporary history is captured. Thus Enrico comes to embody all the questionable aspects not only of life in the old Germany, but of life in the Germany just taking form.

Once again Ingo Schulze proves himself a master storyteller, with an inimitable power to reconjure the complete insanity of this wildest time in postwar German history. As its comic chronicler, he unfurls a panorama of a world in transformation — and the birth of a new era.

“A literary event” (): thirteen new stories from one of Germany’s finest writers.

New Year’s Eve 1999, Berlin. At a party to kick off the twenty-first century, Frank Reichert meets Julia, his lost love. Since their separation in the fall of 1989, he’s drifted through life like an exile, remaining apathetic toward the copy-shop business he started even as it flourishes apace. Nothing has the power to move him now: his whole life lies under the shadow of Julia, of the idea that things could have worked out differently. But as night draws on to day, the promised end becomes an unexpected new beginning.

Ingo Schulze introduces us to characters as they stray outside the confines of East Germany into other, newer lives — into Egypt, where the betrayal of a lover turns an innocent vacation into a nightmare; into Vienna, where life starts to mimic art; into Estonia, where we meet a retired circus bear in an absurd (and absurdly hilarious) dilemma — or as they simply stay put, struggling to maintain their sense of themselves as the world around them changes.

Mixed in with these tragicomic tales are some of the most beautiful love stories ever to feature cell phones. And throughout, Schulze’s masterfully controlled style conceals an understated, but finally breathtaking, intricacy.

Автор приехал в Петербург из Германии в 1993 году, основал газету "Привет, Петербург!" и, увлекшись русской жизнью тех насыщенных встрясками лет, стал писать эту книгу. Она вышла на немецком языке в 1995 году, была отмечена несколькими литературными премиями и вызвала большой интерес в разных странах. В ней — "нормальная" жизнь: новостройки, бедлам, нравы, не всегда понятный для европейца быт, сердечность и радушие. Остро увидено, сердечно и интересно написано. На русском — впервые, это девятый язык, на котором книга издана. Затевая всевозможные игры на 33-х повествовательных площадках своей книги, Инго Шульце пускается в свободное плавание импровизации, ловко комбинируя вымысел и детали нашей до боли знакомой жизни, мифы сознания, литературные цитаты, не таясь имитирует, а иногда умышленно фальсифицирует русскую литературу от Пушкина до Андрея Белого и от Хармса до В. Сорокина, рискуя навлечь на себя гнев и раздражение зашоренного читателя и приглашая к игре узнавания и соразмышления читателя открытого и веселого.