A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

‘One of the best and most important books written in German in our time’ Karl Ove Knausgaard

‘A devastating sliver of a book’ Maggie Nelson

‘Moving and beautifully realized… nearly perfect’ New York Times Book Review

‘Handke’s sharp eye is always finding a strange beauty’ Jeffrey Eugenides

This is Peter Handke’s extraordinary confrontation with his mother’s death. In a painful and courageous attempt to deal with the almost intolerable horror of her suicide, the eminent Austrian novelist and playwright sets out to piece together the facts of her life. What emerges is a loving portrait of inconsolable grief, and of a woman whose lively spirit has been crushed not once but over and over again by the miseries of her place and time. In stark, lucid prose, Handke reckons with his mother’s life as it spans the rise of fascism, World War Two and post-war suffering.