For Richard, the crisis prompts reflection on his nation’s past-and not just Germany, but the German Democratic Republic, East Germany, of which he had been a citizen (as had Erpenbeck). His interest awakens when he learns of a hunger strike being undertaken by 10 men who “want to support themselves by working” and become productive citizens of Germany. What, he wonders, will become of all his things, his carefully assembled library, his research notes and bric-a-brac? It’s definitely a First World problem, because, as Richard soon discovers, there’s a side of Berlin he hasn’t seen: the demimonde of refugees in a time when many are being denied asylum and being deported to their countries of origin. “The best cure for love-as Ovid knew centuries ago-is work.” So thinks Richard, who, recently retired from a career as a classics professor, has little to do except ponder death and his own demise that will someday come. Searching novel of the Berlin refugee crisis by Erpenbeck, considered one of the foremost contemporary German writers.
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