Kairos

Erpenbeck has proved time and again that she is a fearless, astute examiner of a country's soul... Kairos powerfully examines individual as well as collective history - Economist

An ambitious story of love and betrayal - Irish Times

Carefully structured and [...] emotionally resonant... As ever with Erpenbeck, history makes mincemeat of those swept along in its wake: which is to say, all of us. Kairos furthers the conviction that Erpenbeck is a dead cert for a future Nobel prize - Guardian

A subtle, richly layered, densely allusive and hugely ambitious novel... Kairos is an impressive achievement that has deepened my admiration for Erpenbeck's talent for weaving into her fiction clashes of ideology and convulsions of history - Spectator

An extraordinary story of twisted love that unspools in East Berlin during the last years of the GDR... Like all the best allegories, Kairos cannot be reduced to a single, unambiguous message. Kairos is an autopsy of those broken bonds that you were sure would last forever - Sunday Telegraph

A new book from German author Jenny Erpenbeck is always worthy of note and Kairos is no exception... This is Erpenbeck at her brilliant best. One of the great fictional chroniclers of modern Europe - New European

Erpenbeck is a writer with a roving, furious, brilliant mind. Kairos bears with it the absolute urgency of existential questions... Erpenbeck's handling of characters caught within the mesh (and mess) of history is superb. - Los Angeles Times

Erpenbeck is among the most sophisticated and powerful novelists we have. Clinging to the undercarriage of her sentences, like fugitives, are intimations of Germany's politics, history and cultural memory. It's no surprise that she is already bruited as a future Nobelist - New York Times

Kairos is one of the bleakest and most beautiful novels I have ever read - Guardian

Stylishly translated by Michael Hofmann, this is a finely calibrated book... Erpenbeck's subtle use of mirroring reflects the unbreakable links that remained between East and West Germany - Observer

An intimate account of obsessive, transgressive passion. Erpenbeck writes masterfully about time - Harper's

Here's an early contender for novel of the year... There's jealousy, deception, surveillance, cruelty. Pulsing with emotion, it's a beautiful, upsetting work - Telegraph