Penguin Name einer Insel

Here she would stay. Until someone sent new ships to bring her home, to a place that still had to be invented. With one of the last ships, Hilde, who would later call herself Domin, escapes from the National Socialists in 1940. She ends up with her husband Erwin in a remote place: the Dominican Republic, a flourishing paradise under palm trees. Penniless. From nothing, a life emerges that brings the couple close friends and new enemies – and becomes a test for their marriage. As she gazes into the abyss, Hilde builds herself a "room in the air," a room made of words, where she moves in and becomes Hilde Domin, carrying the name of the island. At a time when writing poetry is declared impossible, she does it anyway, and it saves her life. Against a tumultuous, historically documented backdrop, Sarah Ganter delivers a light-footed, often humorous debut, where a bathtub, two dictators, a cloud, and a doubting narrator play important roles. An extraordinary, atmospherically rich novel about losing oneself and reinventing as a poet – and what it is like to write about it. The first fictionalization of the life of Hilde Domin (1909–2006), one of the most significant German-speaking poets of the post-war period, a voice of hope and humanity.