The Hothouse

A progenitor of both W. G. Sebald and Gunter Grass, Wolfgang Koeppen emerges with an existential masterpiece. Harrowing, moody, and supremely powerful, The Hothouse, first published in 1953, stands among the finest novels written in postwar Germany. Largely unrecognized beyond Germany during his lifetime, Wolfgang Koeppen sought to make sense of German life amid the vast political and social reconstruction of the war-ravaged nation. The Hothouse traces the final two days in the life of a minor German politician, Keetenheuve, a man disillusioned by the corruption of German politics and grieving after the sudden death of his wife. With the narrative and sexual frenzy of James Joyce, Koeppen creates a portrait of idealism crushed by political and personal compromise. Rendered in English for the first time by award-winning translator Michael Hofmann, The Hothouse is a tragic masterpiece by a literary visionary who in his lifetime was called by Gunter Grass "the greatest living German writer."