Translation Book Club - 'Lovers of Franz K' - Hatchards, Piccadilly

We are thrilled to welcome editor, writer and founder of BookBlast Ltd, Georgia de Chamberet, as host of The Translation Book Club here at Hatchards.

Meeting on the second Monday of each month, we will be discussing works of fiction in translation from around the world published in the last ten years. With the promise that the titles chosen by Georgia and Hatchards booksellers will be well-written, engaging storytelling, the book club aims to inspire reading for pleasure as well as illuminating cultures beyond our shores.

This evening's discussion focuses: Lovers of Franz K by Burhan Sönmez, translated from the Kurdish by Sami Hêzil (published by Orenda Books):

West Berlin, 1968. As a youth uprising sweeps over Europe in the shadow of the Cold War, two men face each other across an interrogation table. One, Ferdy Kaplan, has shot and killed a student. Kommissar Müller, the other is trying to find out why.

As his interrogation progresses, Kaplan’s background is revealed piece by piece, including the love story between him and his childhood friend Amalya, their shared passion for Kafka, and the radical youth movement they joined. When it transpires that Kaplan’s intended target was not the student but Max Brod, Franz Kafka’s close friend and the executor of his literary estate, the interrogation of a murderer slowly transforms into a dialogue between a passionate admirer of Kafka’s work, who is attempting to protect the author’s final wish to have his manuscripts burned, and a police commissioner who is learning more about literature than he ever thought possible from a prisoner in his custody.

In this gripping, thought-provoking tribute to Kafka, Burhan Sönmez vividly recreates a key period of history in the 1960s, when the Berlin Wall divided Europe. More than a typical mystery, Lovers of Franz K. is an exploration of the value of books, and the issues of anti-Semitism, immigration, and violence that recur in Kafka’s life and writings.

It's going to be an evening of brilliant discussion - we hope you can join us!

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Host or Publisher Waterstones