They were tall, dark-skinned, conspicuous because they were wearing too many clothes for the warm Riviera weather. We saw the young men everywhere in that Italian hinterland-usually in groups of two or three, walking along the road, climbing the hills, sitting on a wall. They were a good deal more interested in the African migrants, who gathered with persistent hopelessness on the Italian side of the border, just a few feet from the guard post. We didn’t have to stop, and the listless border guards barely glanced at our respectable little hired car, with its four white occupants. Daily, we crossed the border into France and back again into Italy. Dry hills, the azure Mediterranean, scents of rosemary and lavender, a lemon tree in the garden. Illustration by Andrea Ventura reference from Mimmo Frassineti / REX / APĮarlier this summer, my family spent a week in an Italian village near Menton, just over the border that Italy shares with southern France. Exquisitely translated by Susan Bernofsky, Go, Went, Gone addresses one of the most pivotal issues of our time, facing it head-on in a voice that is both nostalgic and frightening.In “Go, Went, Gone,” a retired German academic becomes involved in the precarious lives of African asylum-seekers. Go, Went, Gone is a scathing indictment of Western policy toward the European refugee crisis, but also a touching portrait of a man who finds he has more in common with the Africans than he realizes. Curiosity turns to compassion and an inner transformation, as he visits their shelter, interviews them, and becomes embroiled in their harrowing fates. His wife has died, and he lives a routine existence until one day he spies some African refugees staging a hunger strike in Alexanderplatz. The novel tells the tale of Richard, a retired classics professor who lives in Berlin.

Go, Went, Gone is the masterful new novel by the acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, 'one of the most significant German-language novelists of her generation' (The Millions). New York Times Notable Book 2018 Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2018 Lois Roth Award WinnerĪn unforgettable German bestseller about the European refugee crisis: 'Erpenbeck will get under your skin' (Washington Post Book World)

Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck