Kairos

Kairos, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2024, is not an easy read. The characters are not inherently likeable and the novel brims with ideas. It sometimes feels as if Erpenbeck is too keen to show off both her intellectual credentials, multiple German playwrights and musicians are cited with regularity, and her presence as a German citizen when the Berlin Wall fell. Kairos is the Greek god of fortunate moments. His metaphorical presence is felt in both the chance, or not quite so chance, as we learn at novel’s close, meeting between Katharina and Hans. It could also refer to the liberation and subsequent reunification of Germany. Throughout these micro and macro stories collide, the reader has an immediate sense that the relationship between Katharina and Hans will not endure, a function of the 30-plus age-year difference between them, but also their diverse Weltanschauungs. Hans remembers the Nazis and a pre-war Berlin; Katharina has known nothing other than communism. The sadistic violence Hans meets out on Katharina, and her seeming acceptance of it, makes for disturbing reading. Just as the foundations on which East Germany’s existence start to crumble, so do those of the lovers’ relationship. The fall of the Wall marks an ending for Hans but a beginning for Katharina. The novel’s epilogue forces the reader to view events from an additional perspective, too: 7.5/10.

By Jenny Erpenbeck