{"id":8574,"date":"2022-02-10T13:35:17","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T13:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8574"},"modified":"2022-02-16T14:02:32","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T14:02:32","slug":"marzahn-mon-amour-by-katja-oskamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8574","title":{"rendered":"Marzahn, Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Translated by Jo Heinrich<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Peirene Press 11 February 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

144pp, hardback, \u00a312.00<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an idea for jaded writers. Katja Oskamp, dillusioned by a long sequence of rejections and aware of being marooned in the invisibility of middle age, decided to retrain as a chiropodist and thereby changed her life.<\/p>\n

First published in German with the subtitle \u2018Stories of a Chiropodist\u2019, Marzahn, Mon Amour <\/em>tells the stories of a dozen or so clients of a small beauty salon at the foot of an 18-storey tower block in a housing estate on the eastern outskirts of Berlin.\u00a0 Katja\u2019s customers are mostly pensioners, their preoccupations mostly humdrum (smoked fish for sale at the market, new false teeth to get used to, erection problems, partners with oxygen cylinders); many of them are retired factory workers.\u00a0 Flocke, the salon owner, has a client-centred ethos and a passion for sanitizing.\u00a0 Arthritic Tiffy, the nail beautician, is a retired barmaid who has to watch her language.\u00a0 On their annual works outing to thermal baths, the three women let their hair down and Katja sings the praises of the brave inhabitants of Marzahn, who moved there forty years ago and now pour out their elderly, famished hearts to these listening carers.<\/p>\n

Part memoir, part collective history, this slim volume shares the life stories of a memorable sequence of oddballs: Frau Blumeier (\u2018the queen of affirmation\u2019), an elderly widow with an electric wheelchair and a lover; bossy Herr Pretsch, a retired Communist Party official, who can\u2019t find a sexual partner; bewildered old Erwin Fritsche, with his soft spot for chorus girls; nun-like Gerlinker Bonkat, a tough old refugee from East Prussia, with her sore feet, her weak bones, her dislike of authority; Fritz, whose parents owned a travelling circus. Oskamp relays the histories of her clients with non-judgmental amusement and celebratory warmth, prizing their quiet heroism.\u00a0 By the end, we find that she has restored the balance in her own life, enjoying a daily routine which includes early-morning hours at her writing desk and twice-daily walks through the cemetery, either side of immersion in the slapstick, ordinariness and tragedy of a neighbourhood she admires.<\/p>\n

Marzahn, Mon Amour<\/em> was selected for the \u2018Berlin Reads One Book Campaign\u2019.<\/p>\n

This is Jo Heinrich\u2019s first literary translation, and very good it is too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

Oskamp relays the histories of her clients with non-judgmental amusement and celebratory warmth, prizing their quiet heroism. By the end, we find that she has restored the balance in her own life, enjoying a daily routine which includes early-morning hours at her writing desk and twice-daily walks through the cemetery, either side of immersion in the slapstick, ordinariness and tragedy of a neighbourhood she admires […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8576,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8574\/revisions\/8576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}