Hothouse

Wolfgang Koeppen (1906-1996) was born in Greifswald and died in Munich. He worked as a junior chef, a dramaturge, and an editor. In 1951, 1953 and 1954 three novels were published to high acclaim for accurately capturing the atmosphere of the republic under Konrad Adenauer: Pigeons on the Grass, The Hothouse, and Death in Rome. The award-winning translator Michael Hofmann has also translated works by Jenny Erpenbeck, Gert Hofmann, Franz Kafka, Heinrich von Kleist, and Joseph Roth for New Directions. His translation of Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck was awarded the International Booker Prize in 2024. Pankaj Mishra is an Indian writer whose work focuses on literature and politics. He is the author of a novel, The Romantics, and several non-fiction books, including, most recently, The World After Gaza. His essays have appeared in many publications, and he is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and the Guardian.

"Wolfgang Koeppen, a remorselessly brilliant German writer of the twentieth century, has long remained scandalously obscure in the Anglophone world."