River

In River, a woman moves to a London suburb for reasons that are unclear. She takes long, solitary walks by the River Lea, observing & describing her surroundings and the unusual characters she encounters. Over the course of these wanderings she amasses a collection of found objects and photographs and is drawn into reminiscences of the different rivers which haunted the various stages of her life, from the Rhine, where she grew up, to the Saint Lawrence, the Hooghly, & the banks of the Oder.

Written in language that is as precise as it is limpid, River is a remarkable novel, full of poignant images & poetic observations, an ode to nature, edgelands, & the transience of all things human.

°°°

Esther Kinsky grew up by the river Rhine & lived in London for 12 years. She is the author of 3 volumes of poetry & 2 novels, including River, & has translated many notable English (John Clare, Henry David Thoreau, Lewis Grassic Gibbon) & Polish (Miron Białoszewski, Zygmunt Haupt, Ida Fink, Olga Tokarczuk) authors into German. Grove is the winner of the 2018 Leipzig Book Prize. Seeing Further is her fourth book published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Caroline Schmidt was born in Princeton. She translated Esther Kinsky’s Grove, & has translated poetry by Friederike Mayröcker, & art historical essays, museum catalogues & exhibition texts for Albertina in Vienna & Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, among others.