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Repetition
Jan 13, 2026 12:07 AM

Author:Peter Handke,Ralph Manheim

Repetition

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

'Repetition made a great and, as I have since learned, lasting impression on me' W. G. Sebald

Filip Kobal, an Austrian teenager, is on the trail of his missing older brother Gregor, who he never knew. All he has is two of Gregor's books: a school copy book, and a dictionary in which certain words have been marked. As he enters Slovenia on his journey, Filip discovers something else entirely: the transformative power of language to describe the world, and the unnerving joy of being an outsider in a strange land.

'One of the most moving evocations I have ever read of what it means to be alive, to walk upon this earth' Gabriel Josipovici

Translated by Ralph Manheim

Reviews

Handke's eminence, displayed in a substantial oeuvre of plays, novels and poems, is reaffirmed brilliantly by [Repetition]

—— Publisher's Weekly

Knifelike clarity of evocation ... Handke is a kind of nature poet, a romantic whose exacerbated nerves cling like pained ivy to the landscape

—— John Updike

German SF has recently produced at least one new writer on the world stage: Andreas Eschbach

—— The New York Review of Science Fiction

Eschbach is a novelist with vision, with compassion, and with a sense of tragedy, of character, of spectacle, and of human possibility, and also human inevitability ... An unforgettable, beautiful, perpetually entertaining novel

—— Orson Scott Card

An outstanding work

—— John Clute

A world-class SF voice

—— Locus

The Carpet Makers will blow you away ... clever, insightful, entertaining and satisfying

—— Analog

A magnum opus ... Even more astounding, it was Eschbach's debut

—— Kirkus

Everything you could have hoped for . . . dead good entertainment.

—— THE TIMES

There's a weight and a depth to this that shows respect for the material, for Romero and for the genre. The authors know what readers want - and deliver. Pleasingly impressive.

—— SFFWORLD

Irresistibly, Tremain leads you into the dark heart of her artful work with prose that is scalpel sharp

—— Stephanie Cross , The Lady

A dark, thrilling exploration of the nature of revenge and the legacy of damaged family history

—— Marie Claire

Deft new novel... Tremain is such an assured and measured writer

—— Sebastian Sme , Spectator

Tremain expertly maintains the suspense. As one would expect from so gifted a storyteller...much more is on offer than the pleasures of detection

—— Pamela Norris , Literary Review

A novel in which humour, pathos and suspense are sewn together with practised skill

—— Edmund Gordon , Times Literary Supplement

Sinister, shocking and extremely powerful

—— Woman & Home

Wonderful

—— Red

Her writing is always thrilling and this is much more than simply a page-turner

—— Jane Wheatley , The Times

A successful novel, well made and written with a light touch

—— Alex Clark , The Guardian

It is beautifully written, and elegantly edited, and manages to pack in vivid characterisations built on tragic family histories... With its strong structure and interesting themes, it could be a textbook example of how to write a modern novel

—— Third Way

Satisfying death-blow to place-in-the-sun escapism

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent Summer Reads

A compelling novel

—— Tatler

A wry family black comedy, a study in revenge, and an unlikely, if sinister, thriller...a characteristically intelligent, well constructed narrative... The prose is precise and fluent, the tone is neutral, and Tremain makes effective use of the fact that many adults remain children

—— Eileen Battersby , The Irish Times

A criss-crossing, sinuous tale of muted passion and sibling rivarly - and affection - set in the Cevennes. Its peculiar, particular atmosphere is conjured perfectly

—— Erica Wagner , The Times, Christmas round up

A haunting and perfectly poised tale of incest and antiques.

—— Frances Wilson , Daily Telegraph, Christmas round up

Creepily affecting

—— Katy Guest , Independent on Sunday, Christmas round up

Chilling and vivid

—— Charlotte Vowden , Daily Express

Surely one of the most versatile novelists writing today... The scene-setting opening is languorous and beautiful, giving full rein to Tremain's descriptive gifts... A disturbing tale and one rich in detail

—— Daily Express

Intriguing

—— James Urquhart , Financial Times

Tremain expertly heightens the tension in a cleverly fashioned and astutely observed novel that reads like a cross between Ruth Rendell and Jean de Florette

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

Tremain's extraordinary imagination has produced a powerful, unsettling novel in which two worlds and cultures collide

—— Cath Kidson Magazine

Tremain writes about this part of France so well because she has known it since childhood, and she captures a sensuality in the landscape that is both attractive and eerie... It is an enthralling book about the catastrophic disruption honesty can bring

—— Siobhan Kane , Irish Times

The novel has all the formal structure of a medieval morality tale, along with its traditional dichotomies: rus and urbe, avarice and asceticism, chastity and lust

—— Guardian

Rose Tremain's thrilling Trespass is set in an obsure valley in Southern France... To be read slowly; Tremain's writing is too exquisite to hurry

—— The Times

Timeless but rooted; tangible but otherworldly. Meticulously plotted, with the musty sadness that comes of cleaving to the past, Trespass will reward your reading time

—— Scotland on Sunday

Rose Tremain's novel begins with a scream and barely loosens its grip amid the sumptuously written pages that follow...subtly harnesses the stifling heat and dangerously feral landscape of southern France to unspool a psychologically disconcerting story of family skeletons and outsider tensions

—— Metro

Like a sinister edition of A Place In the Sun directed by Alfred Hitchcock, with the depth and subtlety that make the book far more than a mere thriller

—— You Magazine (Daily Mail)
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