Synopses & Reviews
Adaptation is everything. Inge Lohmark is well aware of that; after all, she's been teaching biology for more than thirty years. But nothing will change the fact that her school is going to be closed in four years: In this dwindling town in the eastern German countryside, there are fewer and fewer children. Inge's husband, who was a cattle inseminator before the reunification, is now breeding ostriches. Their daughter, Claudia, emigrated to the United States years ago and has no intention of having children. Everyone is resisting the course of nature that Inge teaches every day in class.
When Inge finds herself experiencing intense feelings for a ninth-grade girl, her biologically determined worldview is shaken. And in increasingly outlandish ways, she tries to save what can no longer be saved.
Synopsis
From the author of Atlas of Remote Islands, a brilliant, biting allegory of the former East Germany, set in that most absurd of places: a school.
About the Author
Judith Schalansky was born in 1980 in Greifswald, Germany. She has degrees in both history of art and communication design and works as a freelance writer and designer in Berlin. She is the author of Fraktur Mon Amour and Atlas of Remote Islands, which was selected as an indie bookseller favorite of 2010 on NPR. This is her first novel.