"Sandra Hoffmann is one of Germany's most exciting contemporary writers. [...] An incredibly dense, finely woven text that immediately grabs you and pulls you mercilessly in." Brigitte Woman. Sandra Hoffmann's "Paula" is a moving piece of autofiction about the writer's relationship to her grandmother, a devout Swabian Catholic who refused to reveal who fathered her child in 1946. Growing up in a family where silence reigns, Hoffmann asks: What kind of person, what kind of writer, does this environment produce?

Winner of the Hans Fallada Prize

About the Author
Sandra Hoffmann was born in 1967 and lives in Munich, where she teaches creative writing and writes for radio and the travel section at DIE ZEIT. For her 2012 novel Was ihm fehlen wird, wenn er tot ist, she received the Thaddaus Troll Prize, followed by the Hans Fallada Prize for Paula. Sandra Hoffmann was writer-in-residence at the British Centre for Literary Translation Summer School in 2018. Born in London and based in Berlin for more than twenty years, Katy Derbyshire translates contemporary German writers. Her published work includes books by Clemens Meyer, Christa Wolf, Heike Geissler and Olga Grjasnowa.

Reviews
"'What makes a person?' asks the narrator of Paula, as she sets out on a quest for the woman behind her elusive late grandmother. A memoir written not to reminisce, but to smash the silence that sneaks up on all families 'like a virus': this is autofiction at its most meaningful, tapping into her child's spry imagination to fill in the gaps of wizened adult memory. There is so much clear-headed and effortless wisdom in Paula, and we have Katy Derbyshire to thank for an English text that reads just as clearly and effortlessly." Sophie Hughes, translator of Fernanda Melchor


Awards
Winner of Hans Fallada Prize 2018.



Book Information
ISBN 9783863912581
Author Sandra Hoffmann
Format Paperback
Page Count 143
Imprint V & Q Books
Publisher V & Q Books
Weight(grams) 200g
Dimensions(mm) 200mm * 136mm * 10mm