Flotsam E-Book

Meike Ziervogel

• Herausgeber: Salt
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Trine and her mother live in a cottage on the German coast. The mudflats that surround them disappear and reappear with the North Sea tides. The family leads a lonely existence, but each person has adapted in their own way. Anna roams the beaches collecting flotsam and jetsam to make art, while Trine loves playing on a war-time shipwreck. That is, until Trine's brother appears. Everyone assumed that he had been killed in the war but what if he survived? In her taut style, Meike Ziervogel tells a coming-of-age story from 1950s Germany – a place still haunted by war. A place where people pretend not to notice the ghosts.

Leseprobe

FLOTSAM

by 

Meike Ziervogel

SYNOPSIS

‘By turns beguiling and unsettling, Flotsam examines grief and loss through the eyes of an extraordinary child’ Rachel Seiffert

Trine and her mother live in a cottage on the German coast. The mudflats that surround them disappear and reappear with the North Sea tides. The family leads a lonely existence, but each person has adapted in their own way. Anna roams the beaches collecting flotsam and jetsam to make art, while Trine loves playing on a wartime shipwreck. That is, until she loses her brother.

In her taut style, Meike Ziervogel tells a coming-of-age story from 1950s Germany – a place still haunted by war. A place where people pretend not to notice the ghosts.

PRAISE FOR THIS BOOK

‘By turns beguiling and unsettling, Flotsam examines grief and loss through the eyes of an extraordinary child.’ —RACHEL SEIFFERT

REVIEWS OF THIS BOOK

‘Ziervogel grew up in Germany and this taut, mysterious novel not only conjures female subjectivities and grief, but it also paints a haunting portrait of the country in the 1950s Germany, with its greater sense of loss, and the looming spectre of crimes committed during the war.’ —ARIFA AKBAR, The Guardian

PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS WORK

‘Haunting originality and real flair.’ —CHRISTENA APPLEYARD, The Daily Mail

‘Ziervogel goes bravely to the bleakest points of humanity and illuminates them with her lyrical and enthralling prose.’ —CLAIRE KOHDA HAZELTON, The Guardian

‘Ziervogel shines a humanising light into the dark spots of her country’s history.’ —LUCY ASH, Observer

Flotsam

meike ziervogel grew up in Germany and came to Britain in 1986 to study Arabic. In 2008, she founded Peirene Press. Flotsam is Meike’s fifth novel. Find out more about Meike at www.meikeziervogel.com

Published by Salt Publishing Ltd

12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk NR27 0AX

All rights reserved

Copyright © Meike Ziervogel, 2019

The right of Meike Ziervogel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Salt Publishing.

Salt Publishing 2019

Created by Salt Publishing Ltd

This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 978-1-78463-179-6 electronic

Contents

TRINE

Anna

TRINE

Trine climbs down from the shipwreck. She moves swiftly. Swift like the wind that is blowing in from the sea. Her brother is lying on the sand. Dead. She knows it before she gets to him.

She had reached out to him. Said, ‘Quick, quick, they are coming. Give me your hand.’

No one was coming. They were playing. She was playing. Carl looked up and stepped between two rungs of the rope ladder, then lost his balance. And if Trine had leaned further forward she might have been able to grab him. But she didn’t. She didn’t.

From the corner of her eye the girl can see across the wide expanse of the mudflats. There is a stick figure walking along the dark line of eelgrass that was left behind by the last high tide. Trine’s mother often walks for hours along the shore, collecting driftwood and flotsam and jetsam. The smaller pieces, such as bottles and tins and toys and shoes, she puts in a rucksack. The bigger pieces, such as wooden planks and boxes, she places in a handcart which she usually pulls along behind her. But today she’s carrying only the rucksack.