An exploratory journey into a world that is condemned to silence yet exists among us. How does one endure the passage of time when forced into inaction? How does one cope with the loss of those they loved? Who passes on the legacy?
Richard, an emeritus professor, has the idea to seek answers through his chance meeting at Oranienplatz with people seeking asylum, looking for those young refugees from Africa, who have washed up in Berlin and are condemned to wait for years. And suddenly this world looks at Richard, the inhabitant of Old Europe, and probably knows better than he does who he truly is.
Jenny Erpenbeck tells a story of aversion and the focus of the gaze, of death and war, of eternal waiting and of what lies beneath the surface with her unparalleled style. A wonderful novel that radiographs the major issues of our times.
With The Visitors, the German writer awakens the progressive consciousness of an entire continent.
"Jenny Erpenbeck has written the most crucial book of our time." Der Spiegel
"The Visitors is a work of exceptional timeliness, which at the same time, literarily neither seeks nor calculates this explosive currency, as every cynicism is alien to it." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"This novel is realistic: not because it realistically depicts the situations but because it builds a literary reality that reflects global reality." Neue Zürcher Zeitung
"Jenny Erpenbeck deserves great respect for this text, for she truly managed to avoid sentimentalism, clichés, and the black-and-white view. And meeting the heroes of her novel provides a new perspective on the problem." Norddeutscher Rundfunk Kultur
