The Interim

The Interim by Wolfgang Hilbig, Translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole, Two Lines Press, 256 pages

In Wolfgang Hilbig’s novel The Interim, the protagonist C. is an East German writer who spent decades stoking boilers in the labyrinthine bowels of an industrial complex – working nights so he could be alone to write. When he escapes to the West in the mid-1980s at the age of 44, it is not by scaling the Wall, or evading the border guards. Vilified and unpublished at home, C. is discovered by a West German publisher who invites him to spend a year in the free and opulent West, all expenses paid. And so, armed with only a visa, he departs Leipzig by train, leaving behind his mother and Mona, his long-time partner.

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