EVA MENASSE

Mit unbestechlichem Blick fur Frauen, ihre menschlichen Schwachen und das, was man an ihnen lieben muss, zerlegt Eva Menasse die Biografie einer Frau in ihre unterschiedlichen Aspekte. In dreizehn Kapiteln zeigt sie Xane Molin als Mutter und Tochter, als Freundin, Mieterin und Patientin, als fluchtige Bekannte und treu lose Ehefrau. Zu Beginn ist Xane vierzehn Jahre alt und erlebt mit ihrer besten Freundin einen dramatischen Sommer. Am Ende ist sie Gromutter und versucht, fur den Rest des Lebenswegs das Steuer noch einmal herumzureien.

Una maravillosa saga ambientada en Viena que narra los insólitos avatares de una excéntrica familia judía a lo largo del siglo XX. Esta es la conmovedora historia de una familia judía en Viena desde la década de 1930 hasta nuestros días. Un clan que vivió en carne propia el nazismo y los dramas de la guerra y la posguerra . Sin embargo, las contingencias históricas son solo el telón de fondo de los avatares de los personajes, una extraña familia dispuesta a morir bajo las bombas con tal de no perderse una buena partida de bridge; un clan donde, al recordar las penurias de la guerra , el abuelo es capaz de decir que todo olía muy mal poeque le faltaba su colonia de espliego. Narrado con gran sentido del humor , se trata de un libro cálido y generoso , serio sin caer en la solemnidad.

Vienna is an acclaimed saga covering three generations of a partly-Jewish Viennese family. Although it progresses from the female narrator's father's birth to the end of his life, there is constant movement backwards and forwards in time, while each chapter tends to concentrate on one particular family member or group. Grandfather married out, to the sandy-haired beauty Frieda, and his sister Gustl married nice-but-dim 'Dolly' Konigsberger, the non-Jewish bank manager beloved for his malapropisms. Aunt Gustl's only son Nandl is in trouble with the police yet again for fraud. In wartime the narrator's father settles in England - near Luton, in fact - with his foster parents Tom and Annie, and develops a talent for football. His brother, only just young enough to qualify for the Kindertransport on which they arrived, is interned on the Isle of Man but later joins the army and fights in Burma. Their sister, beautiful blonde Katzi, will go to Canada and die of TB aged 21. After 1945, the action returns to post-war Vienna. The footballing father will become an Austrian international - the uncle goes into the import/export business and does well until he wastes his talents. Character-led rather than plot-driven, Vienna is a panoramic and sparkling novel of family life in Austria and England. There are delightful vignettes of Vienna with its coffee-houses, bridge parties and tennis clubs; and vivid descriptions of wartime and post-war England. Vienna is arguably the most entertaining German novel since Das Parfum.