Spätestens Morgen

Unexpectedly strong are the delicate creatures of these stories. They endure when the ground beneath them trembles, lash out in moments of danger, and break free from their cages as soon as they feel the wind beneath their wings. Like Ginza, who defends her independence in the pulsating, overpowering metropolis of Shanghai by living with friends in a tiny apartment and guiding tourists through the city. Or Sophie, whose headstrong daughter Clarice takes her photographer boyfriend to the family's summer house, thereby unsettling the familial balance. In her narratives, which Zoë Jenny compiles here for the first time in a single volume, she proves to be a master of the short form: these are stories with a bittersweet resonance, whose impact sweeps you away from the very first sentence. Something abyssal seeps through each of the seemingly gentle sentences, enveloping them in fine melancholy. It is the fear of loss, the awareness of vulnerable spots, that resonates beneath the surface.