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by Katja Oskamp
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 autofiction, 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.
"A real gem ... full of tough wit and resilience." ―The Irish Times
This information about Marzahn, Mon Amour was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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. 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 novel to be translated into English. Her collection of stories Half Swimmer was published in the UK in 2024.
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