LONDON, United Kingdom: German writer Jenny Erpenbeck and translator Michael Hofmann were named winners of the Booker International Prize for their novel “Kairos” on Tuesday.
Originally written in German, the book tells the story of a young woman’s “destructive romance” with an older man in 1980s East Berlin.
Presented at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern, the prestigious award recognizes works of fiction from around the world that have been translated into English, and the £50,000 ($62,000) prize is divided equally between the author and the translator.
2024 Jury President Eleanor Wachtel praised Erpenbeck’s “luminous prose”, evoking the “complexity of the relationship” and the atmosphere of East Berlin.
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She said the story starts with love and passion, but it’s at least as much about power, art and culture.
The self-absorption of the lovers, their descent into a destructive vortex, remains connected to the larger history of East Germany in this period, often meeting history at strange angles, she added.
For Erpenbeck, who is also an opera director, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 represented “liberation”.
“It struck me that liberation is not the only thing that can be told in a story like this,” she said in a statement.
“There are years before and years after,” she added.
Last year, the Booker International Prize was awarded to Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel for the novel “Time Shelter” – the first book written in Bulgarian.
