It's over. Don't go there. - Softcover

Schmidt, Kathrin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 191098115X ISBN 13: 9781910981153

Publisher: Naked Eye Publishing, 2021

Synopsis

These are tales of small, damaged lives that unfold towards sometimes deadly ends. Desolate or downright funny, often they are about women: single and lonely, or ordinary and kind, or who neglect their children, or whose children abuse them. Immigrants, the homeless, the sexually abused, the suicidal - these and other aliens populate a 'left behind' region where a sense of powerlessness holds sway. Gay, straight, or transitioning, most of Schmidt's characters are jobless, and mostly middle-aged, or else very old: a senile paedophile grandmother; another whose stinking belches accompany the wartime trauma she hands down to her offspring, for they too must suffer. Kathrin Schmidt draws us alongside people limited or trapped by circumstances imposed on them, whether by the socialist regime or the one that came after, her stories set variously in the twilight hour of the German Democratic Republic and the post-1989 decade when the GDR was subsumed into the Germany of today. All is not bleak, for adversity generates human kindness and heart-warming responses, even love affairs and comedy. But Schmidt makes her point.

About this title

About the Authors

Poet and novelist Kathrin Schmidt was born in 1958 in Gotha in the former German Democratic Republic and lives in Berlin. Her first poetry pamphlet was published in the famous 'Poesiealbum' series by the GDR publisher, Verlag Neues Leben, of which Christa Wolf had in earlier years been editor-in-chief. Two further collections were published in the GDR. Schmidt's eight poetry volumes and five novels have garnered a host of residencies and awards, notably the 1993 Leonce-und-Lena Poetry Prize, and in 2009 her novel Du Stirbst Nicht was awarded both the annual prize of the reputed Südwestfunk Radio Best List and the German Book Prize, having been shortlisted alongside Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller.

'Twenty poems by Kathrin Schmidt', translated by Sue Vickerman, waspublished by Arc in 2020.Sue's other publications include five poetry collections, three works ofillustrated fiction and a novel, 'Special Needs'. Her stories, articles andpoems have appeared in The Guardian, The Times EducationalSupplement, The Rialto, Stand, The North, Smiths Knoll, and a range ofanthologies. Her translations of poems (Bertolt Brecht, Jan Wagner,Mascha Kaléko, Kathrin Schmidt, Özlem Özgül Dündar) have been takenby The Poetry Review, Oxford Poetry, Modern Poetry in Translation,nomansland and The Stockholm Review, and her translations of shortstories have been taken by seventeen magazines and journals includingWorld Literature Today, Asymptote, The Los Angeles Review, TrafikaEurope and Stand.Over the years she has benefited from five awards from the Arts Councilsof England and Scotland. Sue has an M.Phil in Religious Studies and anMA in Creative Writing.suevickerman.eu

Edition details

• Publisher: Naked Eye Publishing
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 191098115X
• ISBN 13: 9781910981153
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312