The Invisible Land | Hubert Mingarelli | Granta

  • Published: 03/06/2021
  • ISBN: 9781783786039
  • Granta Books
  • 144 pages

The Invisible Land

Hubert Mingarelli

Translated by Sam Taylor

Dinslaken, Germany. July 1945. The war is over, and the Allied forces are beginning to assess the damage. Among them is a war photographer. As the rest of the press corps return home, he finds himself reluctant to leave and, in the company of the young and sensitive driver he has been assigned, he sets out to photograph ordinary German people in front of their homes. As the pair continue their journey, it becomes clear that the young driver has his own reasons for not wishing to return home.

Told with Mingarelli’s trademark restraint and elegance, this is a tense, tender story of the emotional and moral repercussions of violence.

£8.99

This is pure, limpid prose which welcomes silence as music does... The "invisible land" is [revealed to be] a continent that exists in the depths of each person, in all its unfathomable mystery, its fragile and moving humanity

Le Courier Suisse

The poetry of Mingarelli's prose carries this subtle novel [...] between light and shadow

Page

Mingarelli writes beautifully about companionship and compassion, his absorbing gentleness shot through with the cruelty and trauma haunting this exquisite novel

Alison Moore

The Author

HUBERT MINGARELLI is the author of numerous acclaimed novels, short story collections and fiction for young adults. His first novel to be translated into English, A Meal in Winter, was shortlisted for the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Four Soldiers won the Prix Medicis on publication in France and the English translation was shortlisted for the Man Booker International 2019. His last novel, The Invisible Land, was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt. He died in 2020.

More about the author →

The Translator

Sam Taylor is a translator, novelist and journalist. His translations include the award-winning French novel, HHhH by Laurent Binet. His novels have reached an international audience: The Republic of Trees (Faber, 2005) was translated into Italian, German, Korean and Hungarian and was turned into the film All Good Children (2010); The Island at the End of the World (2009) was translated into French and Turkish and a film is in development. He has written for many newspapers and magazine,s including The Guardian, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, Vogue and Esquire, and also worked for 10 years as an editor and sub-editor at The Observer.

More about the translator →

From the Same Author

Granta magazine is run by the Granta Trust (charity number 1184638)

The copyright to all contents of this site is held either by Granta or by the individual authors, and none of the material may be used elsewhere without written permission. For reprint enquiries, contact us.

  • Granta
  • 12 Addison Avenue
  • London W11 4QR
  • United Kingdom
  • Tel +44(0)20 7605 1360