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8 books match the query 'Vennewitz, Leila'

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A Soldier's Legacy

Heinrich Boll

Northwestern University Press, 1994

In 1943 Wenk, a German soldier guarding the Normandy coast, finds himself in a war where the main enemies are loneliness and misery. Corruption is rampant in the High Command: supplies are being siphoned off, and the starving, exhausted soldiers must cross their own minefields to steal potatoes from nearby farms. Against all army rank and protocol, Wenk becomes friends with Lieutenant Schelling, whose protests on behalf of his men have incurred the wrath of another officer. When the company is transferred to the Russian front, heightened fear, suspicion, and mistrust explore the soldiers' barely maintained order into a chaos of desperation. "The great strength of this short novel is its steadfast refusal to glamorize. . . . The clear-eyed wisdom that emerges from it makes it a remarkable achievement." --William Boyd, New Republic "BÃ¶ll is a master storyteller." --New York Times

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Absent without Leave

Heinrich Boll

Northwestern University Press, 1995

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And Never Said a Word

Heinrich Boll

Northwestern University Press, 1994

"First published in 1953, And Never Said a Word is one of Heinrich BÃ¶ll's richest works, a novel that explores marriage with depth and compassion. BÃ¶ll evokes an entire emotional world in the space of a day and a half as a husband and wife alternately relate a story of love and isolation, poverty and injustice. Weakness, as well as strength, provides the subtle emotional threads that form the bonds of their love; and they discover married life takes a far greater toll on those who love than on those whose hearts are empty. ""BÃ¶ll is a master storyteller."" --New York Times ""BÃ¶ll has a talent with fiction that is not hindered by translation--a low-key grace of style and a depth of human understanding."" --Publishers' Weekly"

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Bronstein's Children

Jurek Becker

University of Chicago Press, 1999

"East Berlin, 1973: an 18-year-old Jew discovers that his father's friends are holding prisoner a former Nazi concentration camp guard in the family cottage. The three older men have handcuffed the ex-Nazi to the bed and are interrogating and torturing him in an attempt to get him to admit to his war crimes. . . . Becker keenly shows the tension between members of the Holocaust generation and their children, who are unable to understand the complexity of that nightmarish era of human history."—Booklist

"[A] chilly, disquieting novel about historical slippage; about the seemingly inevitable decline of horror into a vague and generic recollection. The East German writer has devised something between story and allegory to evoke the cold generational millennium that separates a father, with his concentration-camp memories, from a son, adrift in a society with no memories whatsoever."—Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Mr. Becker, writing simply and clearly in an unstrained narrative, speaks with the voice of knowledge, and we do well to listen to him."—Eva Figes, New York Times Book Review

Jurek Becker (1937-1998) is the author of Jacob the Liar, Sleepless Days, The Boxer, and Amanda Herzlos.

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Irish Journal

Heinrich Boll

Northwestern University Press, 1998

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Lifespan Narratives

Ten Stories from a Time of Disruption; Chronicle of Emotions, Notebook 3

Alexander Kluge

Seagull Books, 2025

A poignant exploration of post–World War II life, blending fictional and non-fictional stories that challenge traditions and reflect on the enduring impact of historical disruptions.

Lifespan Narratives has to do with stories, fictitious and not, which present a sad chronicle and question tradition from several different perspectives. Originally comprising Alexander Kluge’s first book, these stories were written between the years 1958 and 1962, in which he emphasizes the importance of continuously questioning our past. He underscores the necessity of recounting lifespan narratives even from today’s viewpoint, proposing that “life in a time of disruption” should be viewed as a constant experiential substance, transcending any single era.

In Lifespan Narratives, readers are invited to explore the enduring impact of historical disruptions through Kluge’s masterful storytelling, which remains as relevant today as it was in the years following the Second World War. For this edition, the English translation of a selection of stories by Leila Vennewitz has been expanded by Alexander Booth in conjunction with the author.

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