The BURIED Book Club discussion

German writer Uwe Johnson has 364 ratings on goodreads.

He seems to be less ignored in press, at least. The Edge, Too Has Its Edge: Reading Uwe Johnson in New York by The Millions
Uwe Johnson in Sheerness: Why did a major East German writer move to an English seaside town?

Johnson wasn't allowed to work as a philosopher in East Germany because his mother's politics weren't their brand of favorable. He got work writing and translating English writers into German. What I find interesting about him is that he wanted to stay in East Germany when he was exiled. Jakob in Speculations about Jakob is in a similar boat of gaining their ire and still feeling loyal to the state. I liked it a lot. Ursule Molianaro translated it into English and she did a fine job capturing the Faulkneresque stream of consciousness with the Gaddis conversational style (I became a fan of hers because of this, in fact. I like that authors in this buried group have translated other buried authors).

Anniversaries part I has been translated into English. Part II finally gets one by nyrb in 2017 hooray. I own part I but have decided to wait for the whole thing.

I found an English translation of The Book about Achim in the wild when visiting Detroit. That pretty much never happens to me so I was excited. The book blurb reads similar style to Speculations about Jakob, though. People interviewed and then you piece together their conflicting memories to make up the truth yourself. (Anniversaries is written in diary entry style.) I liked that about "jakob" that you get these suspicions of who he really is from people who only thought they knew him.

Thanks for the info about Molianaro. My copy credits the translation to a blah blah Harcourt, inc and no mention of her either. (This was not the case for 'Jakob'.)

He has been on my reading list for a few months now. A friend of mine is a big fan, though we usually have different tastes. I heard that he is writing much about Northern Germany and Lübeck, both of which I am interested in.