‘I was just a regular idiot, a nutcase, a show-off and all that. Nothing to cry about. Seriously’Edgar W., teenage dropout, unrequited lover, unrecognized genius – and dead – tells the story of his brief, spectacular life.It is the story of how he rebels against the petty rules of communist East Germany to live in an abandoned summer house, with just a tape recorder and a battered copy of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther for company. Of his passionate love for the dark-eyed, unattainable kindergarten teacher Charlie. And of how, in a series of calamitous events (involving electricity and a spray paint machine), he meets his untimely end.Absurd, funny and touching, this cult German bestseller, now in a new translation, is both a satire on life in the GDR and a hymn to youthful freedom.
A propos de l’auteur
Romy Fursland is a translator from German and French. After studying Modern Languages at Oxford University she went on to obtain an MA in Literary Translation from the University of East Anglia, writing her dissertation on The New Sorrows of Young W. She has translated several stage plays, poetry, and essays and dramatic fragments by Bertolt Brecht. She lives in Norwich.