Synopses & Reviews
Journalist Daniel Mandelkern leaves Hamburg on assignment to interview Dirk Svensson, a reclusive children's book author who lives alone on the Italian side of Lake Lugano with his three-legged dog. Mandelkern has been quarreling with his wife (who is also his editor); he suspects she has other reasons for sending him away.After stumbling on a manuscript of Svensson's about a complicated m
Review
An incredibly moving, fascinating and original novel. We are looking at a young novelist who is going to make an amazing mark on not only German literature, but on world literature. I can’t praise it enough. --Gerald Stern, National Book Award-winning poet
Review
Funeral for a Dog is an unalloyed delight. If Thomas Pletzinger’s ballsy novel is any indication, things are happening in German fiction right now that we owe it to ourselves to pay attention to. --John Wray, author of Lowboy
Review
Funeral for a Dog bristles with wit and intellectual ferocity: a comic novel full of insights into the predicaments of our age. Like Etgar Keret or Haruki Murakami, Pletzinger has found a translator who bridges the distance between two languages and almost makes it disappear. He should win a large, and devoted, American readership. --Jess Row, author of the Train to Lo Wu
Review
Thomas Pletzinger’s Funeral for a Dog is a formally innovative, rigorously intellectual novel that also happens to be extremely funny and tender. Another way of saying this is that it’s the rare experimental novel that, astonishingly, does not have its head up its own ass. Pletzinger has looked at the United States just as hard as he’s looked at everything else, and allowed me to see my own country in a new way. --Tom Bissell, author of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter
Review
In addition to being compelling on structural and philosophical levels, Funeral for a Dog is damn good on a line-by-line basis. Pletzinger's writing (and Ross Benjamin's translation) is graceful and evocative. Mandelkern's voice is great, Svensson's sections are sharp. It's clear why this won the Uwe Johnson Prize and why Pletzinger is considered to be one of the most promising German writers of his generation. --GlobeScan survey of sustainable experts
Review
Pletzinger does an admirable job of revealing intriguing characters without being heavy-handed or coy, and the story he tells is smart and well paced, no small feat considering the large scope and the messiness of the lives chronicled. It's a smart and rewarding debut marked by accomplished writing, a slick translation, and intelligent takes on the absurdities of contemporary lifeIn addition to being compelling on structural and philosophical levels, Funeral for a Dog is damn good on a line-by-line basis. Pletzinger’s writing (and Ross Benjamin’s translation) is graceful and evocative. Mandelkern’s voice is great, Svensson’s sections are sharp. It’s clear why this won the Uwe Johnson Prize and why Pletzinger is considered to be one of the most promising German writers of his generation. --Chad Post
Review
"Mirroring the image of Borromean rings [1] that serves as the primary image for this debut novel, Funeral for a Dog intertwines three storylines:
First, there's Daniel Mandelkern, an ethnologist turned journalist who works for his wife, Elisabeth, a woman whose first child died at birth and wants to try again. Now. He's not necessarily comfortable with this, or himself, but regardless of Daniel's insecurities, his wife sends him off on assignment to Italy to write a profile of..." Chad Post, The Quarterly Conversation (Read the entire Quarterly Conversation review)
Synopsis
This prize-winning debut set in Europe, Brazil, and New York introduces a voice inspired by John Irving and Benjamin Kunkel.
Synopsis
"The kind of writing that makes us want to read the whole book as soon as possible; a shot of adrenaline that immediately takes us to a new world."--David Varno, Words Without Borders
About the Author
Born in 1975, Thomas Pletzinger has won several awards for his writing, including fellowships and teaching positions at the University of Iowa, New York University, and Grinnell College. He lives in Berlin.Ross Benjaminis an acclaimed German-language translator. He lives in Nyack, New York.