The New Sorrows of Young W.

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The young Edgar Wibeau has died aged seventeen, in an unfortunate and entirely preventable electrical accident. Following his death, his long absent father interrogates his son's family and friends, trying to piece together the events that led to this untimely demise. Never one to be upstaged, Edgar himself offers his commentary on events from beyond the grave, to give his account of his uneasy relationship with his mother, his fondness for his best friend Willy and his ill-fated infatuation with the unavailable but ever alluring Charlie. Both reminiscent of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and an homage to Salinger's A Catcher in the Rye, Plenzdorf's engaging satire on the cultural and social limits of East Germany has long been revered as a modern classic of German literature.

Reviews

Immensely exciting Die Tat (Zurich) [A story of] epic force and human intensity... never overly sentimental Welt An innovative novel Publishers Weekly [Plenzdorf is] an agile and smart writer... a real expert... The New Sorrows of Young W. belongs to those books... that are important literary documents of their time, because they for the first time articulate something... which has hitherto either not been seen clearly, or not been seen at all -- Marcel Reich-Ranicki Die Zeit Young W.'s death appears to announce the birth of an eminent new talent, and maybe even the long-awaited beginning of a new kind of literature Suddeutsche Zeitung The effectiveness of this novel... is explained by Plenzdorf's skill in presenting this young human being, with his honesty and direktness, and simultaneously his helplessness... and to express the problems of this eighteen-year-old in the language of an eighteen-year-old... supremely interesting Die Tat (Frankfurt) Hip-sardonic... a mocking parody of Goethe's romantic epic Time Reaches beyond the borders of East Germany, allowing young people... who live under other political and social conditions to recognise themselves in the protagonist, the rebellious young W. in love... Plenzdorf has done his country's literature an immeasurable service Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Spirited, rebellious Spiegel Edgar's voice is reminiscent of Holden Caulfield's, full of naivete and and youthful arrogance, thoughtful and self-aware... a touching and tragic coming-of-age tale that utilizes other pieces of art to examine life in East Germany Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Ulrich Plenzdorf was born in Berlin in 1934, and studied Philosophy and Film in Leipzig. In the early 1970s, he achieved fame with the much acclaimed The New Sorrows of Young W., considered a modern classic of German literature and taught in classrooms across Germany. From 2004 onwards, Plenzdorf was a guest lecturer at the German Institute of Literature in Leipzig. An award winning and much celebrated author and dramatist, he died in 2007.