Kaltenburg - Tapa dura

"Challenging, beautifully written "--Library Journal

Hailed by The New Yorker as one of the best young novelists and recipient of Germany’s most prestigious literary awards, Marcel Beyer returns with a brilliantly wrought novel that brings to life both an individual and a whole world: the zoologist Ludwig Kaltenburg, loosely based on Nobel Prize–winner Konrad Lorenz, and his institute for research into animal behavior.

Hermann Funk first meets Kaltenburg when still a child in Posen in the 1930s. Hermann’s father, a botanist, and Kaltenburg are close friends, but a rift occurs. In 1945, fleeing the war, the Funks perish in the Dresden bombing, and Hermann finds his way to Kaltenburg’s newly established institute. He becomes Kaltenburg’s protégé, embracing the Institute’s unconventional methods. Yet parts of Kaltenburg’s past life remain unclear. Was he a member of the Nazi Party? Does he believe his discoveries about aggression in animals also apply to humans? Why has he erased the years in Posen from his official biography?

Through layers of memory and experience Hermann struggles to reconcile affection and doubt, to make sense of his childhood, even as he meets a woman with family secrets of her own.

Praise for Kaltenburg

“Kaltenburg, a book as fine-boned as the birds that flock its pages, is a meditation not only on the observation of nature but also on the nature of observation, and the varieties and limits of memory." —Times Literary Supplement (UK)

“A masterly recollection of modern history.” —Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
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“This psychological thriller develops like a collection of dark clouds, merging and overlapping . . . Haunting.” —Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World

"Rich in mysteries, including that of the narrator's own reliability." —New York Times Book Review
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“Chilling . . . Remarkable . . . A deeply perturbing novel about blind spots and the evil that fills them. A talented and ambitious young writer." —New York Times

"Beyer explores Nazi evil in terms not merely of its monsters' banality but of their amiability . . . He sifts the ground and shapes it to startling effect." —Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times