Ein winziger Makel (Fault Lines)

Hamburg, Germany: Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, 2008. A5 - A German language edition hardcover book in very good condition with a dust jacket in very good condition. A tight, clean, sound copy in black paper covered boards and a dark brown ribbon marker with very light overall shelf wear with a slight bump to the bottom right corner of the front board. The dust jacket shows very minor overall shelf wear with some very slight overall edge wear and rubbing. Der sechsjährige Sol, die sechsjährige Erra: In wie unterschiedlichen Lebenswelten wachsen sie auf! Sol, verwöhnt, altklug und öfter im Internet unterwegs, als seine gluckenhafte Mutter erfahren darf, lebt in jenem Land, in dem <<Gott mit Bush befreunder ist>>. Erra, das glückliche Mädchen mit der Wunderstimme, das in Trümmern spielt, salutiert noch vor Adolf Hitler. Erra ist Sols Urgrossmutter. Über Generationen sind die beiden verbunden, und dennoch liegt in dieser Genealogie ein unentdecktes Geheimnis verborgen. Was ist etwa mit dem hässlichen Muttermal an Sols Schläfe, das er sich wegoperieren lässt? Was mit dem grenzenlosen Hass seines Vaters? Niemand setzt sich auf dieselbe Weise an den Tisch der Geschichte, und Lüge, Untreue und Verrat bestimmen die Art, wie sie in dieser Familie von Generation zu Generation weitergegeben wird. Es bleibt den aufmerksamen Kindern überlassen, die Brüche und Verwerfungen in den Erzählungen ihrer Eltern zu deuten. Und so mit Hilfe ihrer klaren, nur scheinbar naiven Stimmen, führt uns Nancy Huston über vier Generationen und durch mehrere Kontinente ins Zentrum des diesem Roman zugrundeliegenden Rätsels. <<Ein winziger Makel>> ist ein spannendes, raffiniert und originell konstruiertes Buch, zeitkritisch, politisch, aber auch sehr intim und berührend. Nancy Huston wurde 1953 in Calgary, Kanada, geboren, wuchs in den USA auf. Seit 1973 lebt sie in Paris. Sie ist mit dem Linguisten und Philosophen Tzvetan Todorov verheiratet und hat zwei Kinder. Huston hat zahlreiche Romane und Sachbücher veröffentlicht; für ihr Werk wurde sie in Kanada u.a. mit dem Governor General's Award for Fiction und in Frankreich mit dem Prix Goncourt des Lycéens ausgezeichnet. Für <<Ein winziger Makel>> erhielt sie 2006 den Prix Femina; das Buch war in Frankreich ein Nr.-1-Bestseller. A novel about four generations of a German family and the enduring effects of a dark secret about the family's origins. The novel is organized in reverse chronological order proceeding from 2004 to 1944 and is divided into four sections in which the narration is provided by a child. Like the novel's transition in time, there is an equally broad movement in space with the settings shifting from the West Coast of the United States to the East, from Haifa to Toronto to Munich. The story begins with with the experiences of the gifted six-year-old Sol. He is sheltered by an over-protective mother. Surgery to remove a congenital birthmark goes badly and the extended family travels to great-grandmother's childhood home in Munich. Once there, Sol witnesses a physical struggle between his great-grandmother and his great-aunt which is a trigger to send the narrative thread back through the childhood of Sol's father, his grandmother, and finally his great-grandmother living in 1944 Munich. Nancy Huston was born in 1953 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She was written novels and nonfiction in French and English and has made some noted translations of her own works. Huston grew up in Canada, Germany, and the United States. She left Sarah Lawrence College in New York to attend the École des Hautes Études in Paris, where she studied linguistics and semiotics with the French philosopher and critic Roland Barthes. In the 1970s she was active in the women’s movement and went on to teach at Columbia University’s Institute for Feminist Studies in Paris in the 1980s. After Barthes’s death in 1980, Huston decided to remain in France and shifted her work as a writer to the production of novels. She later married the Franco-Bulgarian literary theorist and philosopher Tzvetan Todorov. Her earlier nonfiction works have been somewhat controversial but her fiction has received wide, international critical acclaim. Her first novel, 'Les Variations Goldberg (The Goldberg Variations)', was short-listed for the Prix Femina. In 1993 she was awarded the Governor General’s Award for best French-language novel for 'Cantique des plaines (Plainsong)'. Her later novels include 'Virevolte (Slow Emergencies)', 'L’Empreinte de l’ange (The Mark of the Angel)', and 'Dolce agonia'. She received the Prix Femina a second time, for 'Lignes de faille (Fault Lines)' and it was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She has published twelve novels so far and continues to live in Paris with her husband and two children. 5.4"x8.3", 367 pages. Zufriedenheit garantiert (satisfaction guaranteed).. German Language Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.