The End of Days

Synopsis

Consists Essentially Of Five Books, Each Of Which Leads To A Different Death For An Unnamed Woman Protagonist. How Could It All Have Gone Differently? The Narrator Asks In The Intermezzos Between. The First Chapter Begins With The Death Of A Baby In The Early Twentieth-century Hapsburg Empire. In The Next Chapter, The Same Girl Grows Up In Vienna, But Her Strange Relationship With A Boy Leads To Another Death. In The Next Scenario, She Survives Adolescence And Moves To Russia With Her Husband. Both Are Dedicated Communists, But Our Heroine Is Sent To A Labor Camp. She Is Spared In The Next Chapter With The Help Of Someone's Intervention And Returns To Berlin To Become A Respected Writer. Jenny Erpenbeck ; Translated By Susan Bernofsky. First Published In Cloth By New Directions In 2014 And As A New Directions Paperbook In 2016--title Page Verso.