English world rights (Seagull), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai People's Publishing House), Italy (Einaudi), Sweden (Ersatz)
The life of an ordinary woman from childhood to the fall of Dresden
»Now they were all mere playthings in the grasping arms of a state order such as had never existed before. An order that could only be destroyed from the outside by lightning and thunder.«
At the centre of this report is a woman from humble beginnings and her experiences in the Third Reich until the fall of Dresden in 1945: Dora W. (modelled after the author’s grandmother) comes to Dresden from Lower Silesia, where she was first a goat herder in the countryside, then a shop girl...
»Now they were all mere playthings in the grasping arms of a state order such as had never existed before. An order that could only be destroyed from the outside by lightning and thunder.«
At the centre of this report is a woman from humble beginnings and her experiences in the Third Reich until the fall of Dresden in 1945: Dora W. (modelled after the author’s grandmother) comes to Dresden from Lower Silesia, where she was first a goat herder in the countryside, then a shop girl and a gardener’s assistant in a small town. She finds the man of her dreams, the butcher’s assistant Oskar, and follows him to Dresden to start a family. She only spent a brief time there, her golden years, as it seems, but then the perspective collapses. Like everyone else, the war overtakes her and with it comes the downfall of Dresden.
With her story, the author follows an individual fate in the historical context before and after National Socialism’s invasion of each individual life. What does dictatorship do to people who are barely able to cope with its demands and yet struggle through? In the process, the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1910, which fuelled doomsday fantasies, takes on a symbolic significance for the destruction of the Saxon metropolis in the firestorm of February 1945.
Grünbein consistently builds his account from the internal perspective of the main character, chooses the simple language of his ancestor to depict the various stations of her life, her hopes, insights and confusion, and the rare comments on what is told are made with restraint. The example of Dora W. is used to tell how history happens to those without a history, ultimately as horror and belated realisation.
»What depresses me most is the obliteration of the traces of what actually happened to my ancestors in the first place.«
»Grünbein composes a sublime final scene. There is no other way to put it, it is staged literarily with such detail, in equal parts horrifying and fascinating … The terror, the fire and brimstone, the downfall – none of that came out of nowhere, it all had a backstory … And that is exactly what Durs Grünbein sets out to tell in this impressive book.« Gerrit Bartels, Der Tagesspiegel
»Nightmarish and lucid in equal measure.« Björn Hayer, Frankfurter Rundschau
»We’ve never read a book like this … by Durs Grünbein. So accessible, so moving.« Cornelia Geissler, Berliner Zeitung
»It is simply refreshing to faithfully follow an author where you do not have to fear that while depicting the undoubtedly brutal downfall, they might also cover over the traces of their own guilt.« Cornelius Pollmer, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»Grünbein‘s The Comet is a denunciation of the embellishment and mythification of the world in the face of war, dictatorship and terror.« Adam Soboczynski, DIE ZEIT
»The Comet is a shining example of what literature can do: giving the fate of an individual back the meaning and magnitude that it had lost in the machinery of historical events.« Ursula März, Deutschlandfunk Kultur - LESART
»The finale, the depiction of the bombing during the night of 13 February 1945, is a masterpiece – a masterpiece taken straight from hell.« Florian Illies
»For a rather long time now – approximately, since the Berlin Wall came down – the name Durs Grünbein has been the answer to the question: Who’s the leading young poet in Germany?« James Fenton, The Guardian
»Grünbein loves to jump from one register to another – one moment he is the street poet of Berlin, the next ... all marble and ancient philosophy.« Philip Ottermann, The Independent
»Grünbein composes a sublime final scene. There is no other way to put it, it is staged literarily with such detail, in equal parts horrifying and fascinating … The...
DISCOVER
Spotlight on Authors from the Former East on German Unity Day
On German Unity Day, we’ve put together a collection of works by writers who were born or worked in East Germany.DISCOVER
Spotlight on Authors from the Former East on German Unity Day
On German Unity Day, we’ve put together a collection of works by writers who were born or worked in East Germany.Persons
Durs Grünbein
Durs Grünbein, born in Dresden in 1962, read theatre studies in Berlin, after which he worked as a freelancer writing for various literary magazines. He is one of the most important and internationally influential German poets and essayists and the recipient of numerous prestigious literary prizes. His debut volume of poetry published in 1988 was entitled Grauzone morgens and he went on to publish nearly twenty collections of poetry including Vom Schnee oder Descartes in Deutschland (2003), Der Misanthrop auf Capri (2005), Porzellan. Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt (2005) and Zündkerzen (2017). He is also the author of a collection of essays and opera librettos. He has translated the tragedies of Aeschylus and Seneca into...
Durs Grünbein, born in Dresden in 1962, read theatre studies in Berlin, after which he worked as a freelancer writing for various literary...
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Equidistance
English world rights (Seagull)
For the Dying Calves
In his four Lord Weidenfeld Lectures held in Oxford in 2019, poet Durs Grünbein deals with a topic that has occupied his mind ever since the moment he started to perceive his own position...
English world rights (Seagull)
From the Dream (Files)
The title of a book of poetry could not be any more provocative, and still the poet allows no room for doubt: »In general, that which we call reality is greatly overestimated.«...
France (selection; 17 Muscles)
Spark Plugs
Spark Plugs is a collection of 83 poems in diverse forms consisting of dream fragments, snippets of speech, prose poems, broken sonnets, and sequences that read like accident reports....
Portuguese rights (Edições do Saguão), Italy (selection; Einaudi)
The Years at the Zoo
English world rights (Seagull), Sweden (Ersatz)
Cyrano or Returning from the Moon
What is going on? The Americans are abandoning the moon, leaving the earth’s seemingly dead companion to stragglers. Time to recapitulate: On a Sunday afternoon in Berlin, on the airfield of the disused Tempelhof Airport, poet Durs Grünbein makes a momentuous observation.
What if humanity only ever wanted to return from its adventures in space exploration? Yesterday it was the...
Colossus in the Fog
Durs Grünbein’s volumes of poetry are known for grasping their subjetcs in larger and larger circles, in their concentric sprawl they seem made for this age of globalisation. His new collection of poetry follows the outline of an exhibition. Works from the last five to eight years are presented in seven sections.
There are images of a journey, excursions into the unknown routine,...
The Vocation of Poetry
Proceeding on the observation that poetics that create norms and set benchmarks no longer existed, Grünbein traces his poetic career as a »sketch of a personal psychopoetics«.
This...
English world rights (Upper West Side Philosophers), Turkey (Ketebe)
The Bars of Atlantis
The term »metaphor« derives from the Greek metà phérein (»to carry elsewhere«), which, in Antiquity, usually meant »by ship«, so that sea travel itself soon became a metaphor for poetry....
English world rights (FSG), Sweden (Ersatz), Albania (Aleph Klub)
Praise of the Typhoon
Durs Grünbein visited Japan four times, in pursuit of a long elective affinity for the East that is also reflected in his works. During all of the four journeys he kept a travel journal in the...
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: France (Voix de Plumes)
The Cartesian Diver
English world rights (Upper West Side Philosophers), Sweden (Ersatz)
Verses for the Day after Tomorrow
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi)
Poem and Secret
This volume contains 25 essays. It provides a chronological rip cut of Durs Grünbein‘s rich essay writing over the course of more than 15 years – from the early, much-quoted texts...
Italy (Einaudi)
Antique Dispositions
Porcelain
English world rights (Seagull)
The Misanthrope on Capri
The Misanthrope on Capri (a reference to emperor Tiberius) gathers Durs Grünbein’s »histories«, printed in various publications and in his own volumes of poetry – poems that mainly deal...
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Poland (Slowo)
On Snow or Descartes in Germany
France (Greges), Italy (Einaudi), Sweden (Ersatz)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Greece (Keedros)
Why Live Without Writing
In the nine essays and speeches collected in this volume, Durs Grünbein circles the prerequisites, conditions and consequences of writing.
»The intimate tries to assert itself through writing,« he says, »paradoxically by exposing itself publicly. But it soon becomes clear that the public is nothing by a particularly impervious protective layer.« Grünbein lets the reader partake in...
Declared Night
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi), Hungary (Jelenkor)
The First Year
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi)
After the Satires
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: France (Petits Matins), Hungary (Jelenkor)
The Dear Dead
»Stop, wanderer, and read!«, called out the tombstones to the passers-by two thousand years ago. Inscriptions spoke of the pleasures of the deceased, of profession and merit, character...
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Portuguese rights (Angelus Novus), Norway (Bokvennen), Japan (CHUO University Press)
Grey Area in the Mornings
The »silent turmoil« of an elegiac expressionism is what propels Durs Grünbein’s poems forwards, who notes his experience of reality in crass and direct...
Italy (Einaudi); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Poesia Hidalgo), Hungary (Jelenkor)