Advertisement
More from the Review
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Best of The New York Review, plus books, events, and other items of interest
Michael Hofmann is a poet and translator from the German. He teaches at the University of Florida. His translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel Kairos won the 2024 International Booker Prize. (June 2024)
Punning for Germany
The strange experience of youth in Thomas Brussig’s East Germany.
The Short End of the Sonnenallee
by Thomas Brussig, translated from the German by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson, with an introduction by Jonathan Franzen
October 19, 2023 issue
Bewitched by Goethe
In Johann Eckermann, Goethe found an amanuensis made in heaven.
Conversations with Goethe: In the Last Years of His Life
by Johann Peter Eckermann, translated from the German by Allan Blunden, with an introduction and notes by Ritchie Robertson
May 25, 2023 issue
In the Pencil Zone
Susan Bernofsky’s biography of Robert Walser approaches her subject with an openness to other, previously rejected possibilities.
Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser
by Susan Bernofsky
February 10, 2022 issue
Heine’s Heartmobile
The liveliness and invention of Heinrich Heine’s writing changed the nature of German literature and of the whole nineteenth century.
Heinrich Heine: Writing the Revolution
by George Prochnik
July 22, 2021 issue
Musil’s Infinities
Intimate Ties: Two Novellas
by Robert Musil, translated from the German and with an afterword by Peter Wortsman
Agathe, or, The Forgotten Sister
by Robert Musil, translated from the German and with an introduction by Joel Agee
March 26, 2020 issue
Art for Film’s Sake
Never Look Away
a film written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
March 21, 2019 issue
‘A Born Contrarian’
For the subversive, modest, trenchant Bertolt Brecht, a poem is simply the most stringent and economical mode of presenting an argument.
The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht
translated from the German and edited by Tom Kuhn and David Constantine
December 20, 2018 issue
The Lion in Winter
Of All That Ends
by Günter Grass, translated from the German by Breon Mitchell
June 8, 2017 issue
‘An Adorable Bookling’
Looking at Pictures
by Robert Walser, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky, with additional translations by Lydia Davis and Christopher Middleton
June 23, 2016 issue
A Puzzling Heroine of German Literature
The Country Road: Stories
by Regina Ullmann, translated from the German by Kurt Beals
October 22, 2015 issue
Torch Song in Vienna
Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Kraus Project’
The Kraus Project: Essays by Karl Kraus
translated from the German and annotated by Jonathan Franzen, with assistance and additional notes from Paul Reitter and Daniel Kehlmann
October 24, 2013 issue
Artist of Everything
Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales
by Kurt Schwitters, translated from the German and with an introduction by Jack Zipes, and with illustrations by Irvine Peacock
December 9, 2010 issue
Free calendar offer!
Subscribe now for immediate access to the latest issue and to browse the rich archive. You’ll save 50% and receive a free David Levine 2025 calendar.
Subscribe nowGive the gift they’ll open all year.
Save 65% off the regular rate and over 75% off the cover price and receive a free 2025 calendar!