Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman: A Novel
*Starred Review* Delius, author of 14 novels, 5 poetry collections, and a libretto, is this year’s winner of Germany’s highest literary honor, the Georg Büchner Prize. Acclaimed in Germany, rapturously reviewed in England, and marvelously translated, his newest novel, written in one long sentence, helpfully broken up in paragraphs, is little short of miraculous. It concerns itself with the thoughts over a couple of hours of a 21-year-old, eight-months-pregnant war bride, residing in a convent in Rome in January 1943. She walks through the Eternal City to a concert and traverses some of the most famous and well-traveled passages in history, reflecting unself-consciously on her absent husband (serving in Africa with the Wehrmacht), her fetus, the war, her good fortune, her Protestant faith, the suffering of others, and her alien surroundings. The novel is a marvel as a character study and a portrait of a period. Delius has written a clear stream of consciousness, and the rewards for the reader are immense. Pleasure this pure is rare: by the end, readers’ hearts will be racing. --Michael Autrey