Rombo Paperback – October 5, 2022 by Esther Kinsky (Author), Caroline Schmidt (Translator)
$16.95

Rombo

Brand: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Current Stock: 2
UPC: 9781681377247
Gift Wrapping: Gift Wrapping Available
Authors: Esther Kinsky (Author), Caroline Schmidt (Translator)

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fitzcarraldo Editions (October 5, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1804270032
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1804270035
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.11 pounds

 

In May and September 1976, two earthquakes ripped through north-eastern Italy, causing severe damage to the landscape and its population. About a thousand people died under the rubble, tens of thousands were left without shelter, and many ended up leaving their homes in Friuli forever.

The displacement of material as a result of the earthquakes was enormous. New terrain was formed that reflects the force of the catastrophe and captures the fundamentals of natural history. But it is far more difficult to find expression for the human trauma, the experience of an abruptly shattered existence.

In Rombo, Esther Kinsky's sublime new novel, seven inhabitants of a remote mountain village talk about their lives, which have been deeply impacted by the earthquake that has left marks they are slowly learning to name. From the shared experience of fear and loss, the threads of individual memory soon unravel and become haunting and moving narratives of a deep trauma.

 

Review

'A tragic travelogue to the underworld-turned-world that recasts a newly lost Italian past with a climate-wise chorus straight out of the most harrowing Greek drama.'
-- Joshua Cohen, author of The Netanyahus

'Esther Kinsky has created a literary oeuvre of impressive stylistic brilliance, thematic diversity and stubborn originality. ... It is always clear that for her the only landscape worth describing is the one in which she is currently situated. Far from "eco-dreaming", without sorrow or critique, Kinsky's novels and poems position humanity in relation to the ruins it has produced and what still remains of nature.'
-- 2022 Kleist Prize jury

'In Esther Kinsky's new novel, language becomes the highest form of compassion and solidarity - not only with us human beings, but with the whole world, organic, non-organic, speaking out with many mouths and living voices. A miracle of a book; should be shining when it gets dark.'
-- Maria Stepanova, author of In Memory of Memory

'The quality of Esther Kinsky's writing is so good that you cannot fail to be spellbound by it.'
-- The Modern Novel

About the Author

Esther Kinsky grew up by the river Rhine and lived in London for twelve years. She is the author of six volumes of poetry, five novels (Summer Resort, Banatsko, River, Grove, Rombo) numerous essays on language, poetry and translation and three children's books. She has translated many notable English (John Clare, Henry David Thoreau, Iain Sinclair) and Polish (Joanna Bator, Miron Bialoszewski, Magdalena Tulli) authors into German. Both River and Grove won numerous literary prizes in Germany.

Caroline Schmidt was born in Princeton. She translated Esther Kinsky's Grove, and has translated poetry by Friederike Mayröcker, and art historical essays, museum catalogues and exhibition texts for Albertina in Vienna and Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, among others. She lives in Berlin.