In rural Transylvania, a young wife fearing for her unborn child takes a sleigh ride through all-enveloping snow. BLURRED tells the story of that child, Samuel, through the voices of those who know him.

The boy grows up behind the Iron Curtain under the brutal Ceausescu regime in Romania, where language masks truth and even minor acts have repercussions. Harsh political realities are counterbalanced by the rhythms of village life. Samuel's story builds through places, memories, his family, the acts of individuals and all the ways in which we affect others.

What happens when one decides to stay - but others must stay?

What becomes of those who migrate, and where do they really belong?

This moving story of exile and migration encompasses one century and many lives with remarkable depth and also brevity. Iris Wolff's lyrical yet precise prose evokes a lost time and a scattered people in this multiply-prize-winning novel.

Goethe Institute in London special event for Iris Wolff and BLURRED with her translator, Ruth Martin, moderated by Moth Books publisher, Monique Charlesworth, June 24, 2025

Hatchard's Book Shop in Piccadilly, London book launch with Iris Wolff June 25, 2025

Monocle interview/podcast date TBC in June, 2025

Publicity by Ruth Killick: other events TBC

For advance review copies email publicity@ruthkillick.co.uk

About the Author

Iris Wolff was born in the medieval town of Sibiu, Transylvania, emigrated to Germany as a child and now lives in Freiburg in Breisgau. She studied German literature, religious studies, painting and graphics. She worked for several years in the German Literature Archive in Marbach and also lectured on art and cultural education.

She has written five novels and a collection of short stories. A best-seller in Germany and celebrated for her original storytelling and style, she has won over a dozen literary prizes.

The author describes her writing as 'a rebellion against time and its greatest impertinence, transience'. Her books vividly evoke her own childhood, the village house and garden where she grew up in the Banat, a region of Romania formerly populated by German speakers, multiple nationalities and communities. Emigration during the communist period and after the fall of the Iron Curtain brought 800 years of history to an end.

BLURRED was nominated for the German Book Prize, the Bavarian Book Prize (fiction) and the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize; it won two prestigious awards, the Evangelical Book Prize and the LiteraTour North Prize.

Reviews

'A magical feat of imagination' Suddeutsche Zeitung

'A large small book, in barely two hundred pages an artfully created universe' Munich Abendzeitung

'This season's discovery: Iris Wolff's enchantingly beautiful family novel' Der Tagesspiegel

'This is great, great storytelling art' Deutschland radio

'Extremely original narrative style'; 'a complete success' Literaturkritik.de

'No one else has made history float as beautifully as this' Stefan Kister, Stuttgarter Zeitung

'Blurrred is quiet, reserved and yet highly intensive and extensive ... Iris Wolff is so embedded in the minds of nearly all her characters that they swiftly become memorable.' Gerrit Bartels, Tagesspiegel

'A novel that is very diverse, poetic, political, psychologically astute and joyful' Ann-Dore Krohn, Literary Colloquium Berlin

'To journey with her, to get involved in this novel and its wonderful prose, to immerse yourself in it - what a great and very touching experience.'Denis Scheck, Das Erste druckfrisch

'"A story can be told so often and so vividly that you think you remember it yourself." This is precisely what comes to pass in BLURRED. The last chapter, Prestigio, is named for the crescendo of a magic show. A perfect fit.' Andreas Platthaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

'A hauntingly delicate narrative in language which creates the lightest of atmospheres, always with a faint undertone of melancholy.' Pasc Eisenack, Nurnberger Zeitung

Ultimately everything comes together to make a completely wonderful book, a magnficent and notably idiosyncratic novel bedded in the nostalgically beautiful landscape of the Banat ....

A powerful story, a polyphonic concert.' Wolfgang Wiedenhoefer, Frisch vom Stapel

'Iris Wolff's quiet narrative flow enchants. The world of this novel is fully revealed in the language of an author who finely weaves thematic threads and connections through the whole text' Carsten Hueck, Ex Libris

'Beautiful, clear images, uniting tough and gentle, depict lives shaped by political upheavals, personal tragedies and misdeeds, by individual courage, self-will, a hunger for life and a deep attachment to the soil.' Franziska Hirsbrunner, Swiss Radio and Television SRF

'Here, strong characters move on quiet feet; suffering and blows of fate are seen as passing phenomena rather than focal points, and the tension places the accents where you least expect them ... Wolff's literature is poetic, rather than constructive; life itself does not follow dramaturgy.'

Irina Kilimnik, Die Presse

'The great quality she possesses is perhaps what Peter Handke (referring to Hermann Lenz) once called poetic history lessons. 'Iris Wolff has written another great novel.' Rainer Moritz, Norddeutscher Radio

'Tthrough language alone, she transports us into a realm that lies beyond words. There is no escaping this magic.' Stefan Kister, Stuttgarter Zeitung

'Iris Wolff has at her disposal an incredibly sophisticated psychological tool - an instrument she uses to draw her figures. It feels like watercolour, but afterwards you really feel wow - what a huge landscape has been drawn here.' Denis Scheck, WDR Westdeutscher Radio

'Blurred is certainly one of the most beautiful, thrilling and fine novels of this summer's book season, indeed of this year.' Roland Freisitzer, Sandammeer

'It is ... the invisible threads connecting people which make this book so special.'

Gabriele Weingartner, Die Rheinpfalz

'A stroke of luck for German language literature' Gerard Otremba, Sounds and Books

'Iris Wolff's gift for language has produced a book that arises as much from her educational grounding as from her German-Romanian language citizenship, creating a homeland both for herself and for the reader. Only literature of high rank can achieve this.' Matthias Buth, Hermannstadter Zeitung

'Iris Wolff travels along the edges of political systems and transcends them ... The author tells her story in a touching and a stirring manner; because the real background is often blurred, her characters and their experiences aretremendously vivid ...' Cornelia Geissler, Berliner Zeitung

Awards
Winner of Evangelical Book Prize, Germany 2021 and LiteraTour North Prize, Germany 2021.



Book Information
ISBN 9781917593007
Author Iris Wolff
Format Paperback
Imprint Moth Books
Publisher Moth Books