Austerlitz

by Anthea Bell (Translator), Anthea Bell (Translator), W. G. Sebald (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $11.79

  This is the real life story of Jacques Austerlitz who, at the age of five, came to London on one of the so-called kindertransports in the summer of 1939. Austerlitz is placed with foster parents in Wales, a childless couple who, for reasons of their own, erase in the boy all knowledge of his identity. Though he does, later on as an adult, have intimations of his otherness, Austerlitz, whose profession is that of an architectural historian, goes through life assiduously avoiding all clues that might point to his origins and to the fate of his true parents. It is only in his retirement that the past returns to haunt him and makes him explore what happened to him half a century ago, taking him back on a journey into the heart of Europe on the edge of war...the main locations of the book are Wales, London, Prague, various places in Belgium and Paris.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $4.29

  In the summer of 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on one of the Kindertransports and placed with foster parents in Wales. For reasons of their own, the childless Calvinist couple erase from the boy all knowledge of his identity. Throughout his life Austerlitz is haunted by feelings of otherness, but it is not until retirement that he embarks on a journey to make sense of his curious early memories and explores what happened to him half a century ago.