The Sleep of the Righteous

Doppelgängers, a murderer's guilt, pulp noir, fanatical police, and impossible romances - these are the pieces from which German master Wolfgang Hilbig builds a divided nation battling its demons. Delving deep into the psyches of both East and West Germany, <i>The Sleep of the Righteous</i> reveals a powerful, apocalyptic account of the century-defining nation's trajectory from 1945 to 1989. From a youth in a war-scarred industrial town to wearying labor as a factory stoker, surreal confrontations with the Stasi, and, finally, a conflicted escape to the West, Hilbig creates a cipher that is at once himself and so many of his fellow Germans. Evoking the eerie bleakness of films like Tarkovsky's <i>Stalker</i> and <i>The Lives of Others,</i> this titan of German letters combines the Romanticism of Poe with the absurdity of Kafka to create a visionary, somber statement on the ravages of history and the promises of the future.