Portrait of the Mother As a Young Woman

In Rome one January afternoon in 1943, a young German woman is on her way to listen to a Bach concert at the Lutheran church. The war is for her little more than a daydream, until she realizes that her husband might never return. Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman, winner of the prestigious Georg Buchner prize, is a mesmerizing psychological portrait of the human need to safeguard innocence and integrity at any cost—even at the risk of excluding reality. More than just the story of this single woman, it is a compelling and credible description of a typical young German woman during the Nazi era.

Friedrich Christian Delius, one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary German writers, was born in 1943 and lives in Berlin and Rome. He has published fifteen novels and five poetry collections, and has recently written the libretto for Prospero by Luca Lombardi. He has won most of Germany's prestigious literary awards--including the Joseph Breitbach Prize, the Georg Buchner Prize, and the Critics Prize--and his books have been translated into seventeen languages.

Jamie Bulloch has been a professional translator since 2001. His most recent works include The Sweetness of Life by Paulus Hochgatterer and Ruth Maier’s Diary.