The Old Child And The Book Of Words

Jenny Erpenbeck

Susan Bernofsky

From the winner of the International Booker Prize
'Bracing, unflinching and alive' Nicole Krauss
'Intense and beautifully written' Time Out

A child is found standing on the street, with an empty bucket in her hand, and no memory of her name, her family or her past. Elsewhere, another girl grows up surrounded by familiar faces who suddenly start slipping mysteriously from her life. In the company of these girls, across these two haunting novellas, we tread the uncertain and spiky terrain of memory, where words are dropped like clues to reveal what has been hidden, forgotten or erased.

'[There's] something viral about this tale: it gets into the blood stream and refuses to leave. Beguiling and original' Times
'A haunting, offbeat novella of real profundity' Lionel Shriver
'Erpenbeck excels as miniaturist, examining the psychology of her blank-eyed outsider with language as sharp as a scalpel' Guardian