International Dublin Literary Award
Marzahn, Mon Amour
From the viewpoint of a woman working as a chiropodist in East Berlin's Marzahn district, the novel gathers the lives of older neighbors into a series of compact portraits. Against the backdrop of redevelopment and generational change, it captures labor, aging, and the warmth of solidarity.
Work Information
What emerges from ground level is the dignity of the people living at the city's edges.
Based on the author's experience working as a chiropodist, Marzahn, Mon Amour depicts the daily lives of people in one Berlin district with a gentle eye and light humor. Rather than major events, it captures the dignity lodged in conversations, gestures, and the folds of memory.
Review Summaries
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Readers value the fine-grained observation and the humor and warmth found in everyday life. Some wish for a stronger narrative drive, but the lingering effect of the linked vignettes is widely admired.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Peirene Press
- Published
- 2026-07-07
- Pages
- 144 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.45 x 5.08 x 19.81 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781908670694
- ISBN-10
- 190867069X
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Biographical
WINNER OF THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2023. As heard on BBC Radio 4 ‘Book at Bedtime’, August 2022 Shortlisted for The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation and the TA First Translation Prize. Spiegel bestseller, selected for Berlin Reads One Book 2021. Over 180,000 copies sold worldwide. A woman approaching the ‘invisible years’ of middle age abandons her failing writing career to retrain as a chiropodist in the East Berlin suburb of Marzahn, once the GDR’s largest prefabricated housing estate. From her intimate vantage point at the foot of the clinic chair, she observes her clients and co-workers, listening to their stories with empathy and curiosity. Part memoir, part collective history, Katja Oskamp’s love letter to the inhabitants of Marzahn is a tender reflection on life’s progression and our ability to forge connections in the unlikeliest of places. Each person’s story stands alone as a beautifully crafted vignette, but together they form a portrait of a community.
Author Katja Oskamp was born in 1970 in Leipzig and grew up in Berlin. After completing her degree in theatre studies, she worked as a playwright at the Volkstheater Rostock and went on to study at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. Her debut collection of stories Halbschwimmer was published in 2003. In 2007 she published her first novel Die Staubfängerin. Her book Marzahn, Mon Amour, published by Hanser with the subtitle 'Stories of a Chiropodist', was selected for the 'Berlin Reads One Book' campaign and thus literally became the talk of the town. She is a member of PEN Centre Germany. Marzahn, Mon Amour is her first work to be translated into English. Translator Like the narrator in Marzahn, Mon Amour, Jo Heinrich found her ideal career in her middle years, and graduated in 2018 with a distinction in her MA in Translation from the University of Bristol. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Austrian Cultural Forum London Translation Prize and the 2019 John Dryden Translation Competition. She translates from French and German, and she lives just outside Bristol with her family. Marzahn, Mon Amour is her first literary translation.
Reviews
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Danke
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A book which is a collection of glimpses into the character and lives of the selection of clients who attend a chiropodists may sound uninspiring but this book is certainly not that. It's a short book of short chapters but each one a beautifully written window into ordinary people, many of them marginalised by being older and a reminder that everyone has a story and a past and are not really "ordinary" at all but extraordinary in having lived.
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This is a lovely book , different, every page filled with humanity , kindness and a authentic empathy with normal people coping with mundane lives. Well worth reading.
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Excellent book. Anyone who works in the aesthetic or wellness industry will relate to the intimate relationships developed with clients. Really beautiful writing.
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Very enjoyable novel. However, would have preferred Cloud Cuckoo Land forthe Dublin literary awatd.
Related Literary Awards
- International Dublin Literary Award Edition 28 (2023) ・Winner・Winner