Stella

Stella
Liesl Schillinger, Takis Wurger
RRP:
NZ$ 24.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 19.99
Paperback
h198 x 129mm - 208pg
6 Jan 2022 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9781611854480
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order

Click to view other formats:
9781611854497 US Trade Paperback $29.59

In 1942, Friedrich, an even-keeled but unworldly young man, arrives in Berlin from bucolic Switzerland with dreams of becoming an artist. At a life drawing class, he is hypnotized by the beautiful model, Kristin, who soon becomes his energetic yet enigmatic guide to the bustling and cosmopolitan city. Kristin teaches the nai ve Friedrich how to take care of himself in a city filled with danger, and brings him to an underground jazz club where they drink cognac, dance, and kiss. The war feels far away to Friedrich as he falls in love with Kristin, the pair cocooned inside their palatial rooms at the Grand Hotel, where even Champagne and fresh fruit can be obtained thanks to the black market. But as the months pass, the mood in the city darkens yet further, with the Nazi Party tightening their hold on everyday life of all Berliners, terrorizing anyone who might be disloyal to the Reich. Kristin' s loyalties are unclear, and she is not everything she seems, as his realizes when one frightening day she comes back to Friedrich' s hotel suite in tears, battered and bruised. She tells him an astonishing secret: that her real name is Stella, and that she is Jewish, passing for Aryan. Fritz comforts her, but he soon realizes that Stella' s control of the situation is rapidly slipping out of her grasp, and that the Gestapo have an impossible power over her. As Friedrich confronts Stella' s unimaginable choices, he finds himself woefully unprepared for the history he is living through. Based in part on a real historical character, Stella sets a tortured love story against the backdrop of wartime Berlin, and powerfully explores questions of naivete , young love, betrayal, and the horrors of history.
Praise for Stella"Takis Wurger is someone out of the ordinary and this book is like him: powerful, strong, painful. Stella is a book from which we do not emerge unscathed and in which he explores the depths of the human soul. I stayed in this book for a long time after turning the final page. Wurger is surely one of the most important writers of our generation. "--Joel Dicker, New York Times-bestselling author of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair"With its deceptively simple yet quietly elegant style, Stella takes us into a world which we assume perhaps that we know, the Berlin of the war years. To our surprise, however, we discover that we do not know it at all. Here is a love story set among jazz clubs and artist studios yet inevitably enacted in the shadow of the Gestapo. It' s a story which shows us something new about a nightmare which is always in danger of seeming too familiar. "--Lawrence Osborne, author of The Glass Kingdom"I was somewhat skeptical when I began this book, but it gripped and surprised me, and by the end I was full of admiration. "--Daniel Kehlmann, International Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Tyll"For those who wish to find in history a key to our absolutist present. "--Il Giornale (Italy) "Stella is a book you can hardly put down. You will read it in just a few hours, whatever you might have planned . . . It has a style which in a certain way echoes Hemingway' s war reporting--you might call it ' melancholy heroism. ' But it reads very well, you can' t say otherwise. "--Die Welt (Germany)"Wurger writes in a quiet, authentic style; he writes without mercy but never without empathy, never in a way that is contrived or lurid. "--Judische Allgemeine (Germany) "Wurger avoids any hint of pathos, writing instead in clearly chiseled, artfully sparse sentences . . . It is the escalating state of emergency that explains everything in this slimmed down, concise novel. "--Abendzeitung Munchen (Germany)"Stella shows how war and love sometimes bring up the worst in a human being, and how much pain love can cause. "--Metro (Netherlands)Praise for The Club "The gritty subject matter is juxtaposed against a prose style we tend to associate with a different kind of novel--it reads more like a coming-of-age story than a thriller. Wurger' s writing is mannered; it often has an otherworldly, fable-like quality. "--Adelle Waldman, New York Times Book Review "Wurger' s debut was a bestseller in his native Germany. Its universal themes, brilliantly depicted world and taut storytelling constitute a recipe for further success . . . The Club starts out as a poignant coming-of-age tale and then morphs into an intelligent, fast-paced thriller that scrutinizes class divides and gender imbalance . . . Wurger serves up visceral thrills with boxing bouts. But he delivers real knockout blows as Hans goes deeper undercover and learns ' what humans are at heart: predators. ' "--Malcolm Forbes, Minneapolis Star Tribune "A timely, beautifully paced novel about class and prestige in the #MeToo era . . . In a campus novel that echoes the detective structure of Donna Tartt' s The Secret History, Wurger cycles between each character' s voice to brilliantly evoke the medieval unreality of Cambridge and the almost comical wealth of the students. There is much to dissect in this concise and dramatic tale. "--Booklist "A young man infiltrates a secret university club and discovers a dangerous secret . . . The club is full of rich, privileged young men well-versed in secrets, debauchery, and something far more sinister . . . The novel' s complicated ending touches on the problem of justice and redemption: who gets it, who deserves it, and its human cost. A sparse, cutting debut in which violence begets violence begets healing. "--Kirkus Reviews "Distinguished German journalist Wurger, who broke some bones boxing for a year at Cambridge, offers a powerful and provoking story. "--Library Journal "A cunning, sinuous tale, Takis Wurger' s The Club is so wildly entertaining that, at first, it' s easy to miss its deeper mysteries. But, as it unfolds, brutal truths about class and gender and violence emerge, take hold and shudder through the novel' s final pages. "--Megan Abbott, best-selling author of Give Me Your Hand and You Will Know Me "The Club, Takis Wurger' s exquisite debut, is a novel as rare as a phoenix, a story both beautifully told and white-knuckle thrilling. A tale of pain, privilege and revenge, The Club reads like something both mythical and modern, a fable whose pages demand to be turned. "--Christopher J. Yates, author of Black Chalk and Grist Mill Road
Takis Wurger is a reporter working for the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Named one of Medium' s "Top 30 Journalists under 30," alongside other accolades, Wurger' s work as a journalist has taken him to Afghanistan, Libya, Mexico, and Ukraine. His first novel, The Club, won the lit. Cologne debut prize in Germany. Liesl Schillinger is a literary critic, writer, and translator, and teaches journalism and criticism at the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts of the New School for Social Research in New York City. She is the translator of the #1 international bestseller The Psychology of Stupidity, and has translated novels by Alexandre Dumas fils, Natasa Dragnic , Ines Cagnati, and Lorenza Pieri. She is the author of Wordbirds: An Irreverent Lexicon for the 21st Century. In 2017, she was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.

In stock - for items in stock we aim to dispatch the next business day. For delivery in NZ allow 2-5 business days, with rural taking a wee bit longer.

Locally sourced in NZ - stock comes from a NZ supplier with an approximate delivery of 7-15 business days.

International Imports - stock is imported into NZ, depending on air or sea shipping option from the international supplier stock can take 10-30 working days to arrive into NZ. 

Pre-order Titles - delivery will vary depending on where the title is published, if local stock is available in NZ then 5-7 business days, for international imports it can be 10-30 business days. In all cases we will access the quickest supply option.

Delivery Packaging - we ship all items in cardboard sleeves or by box with either packing paper or corn starch chips. (We avoid using plastics bubble bags)

Tracking - Orders are delivered by track and trace courier and are fully insured, tracking information will be sent by email once dispatched.

View our full Order & Delivery information

Details of the product above will be automatically included with your enquiry.