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This Side of the Oder
Judith Hermann
Translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo
‘Time retreated, his dread crouched in the farthest recess of his mind.’
Granta 166: Generations Online
Generation Gap
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
Generation Gap
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
Generation Gap
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
Generation Gap
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
Generation Gap
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
Judith Hermann
Judith Hermann was born in 1970 in Berlin where she lives and works as a writer and film-maker. ‘This Side of the Oder’, which appeared in Granta 74, was taken from her first collection of short stories, The Summerhouse, Later. She has since written two collections of stories, Nothing But Ghosts (2003) and Alice (2009).
More about the author →Translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo
Margot Bettauer Dembo is a translator of German literature into English. She has translated works by Judith Hermann and Ödön von Horváth amongst others. She is the winner of Goethe-Institut Berlin Translator’s Prize in 1994. She lives in New York.
More about the translator →