German author Jenny Erpenbeck wins International Booker Prize for tale of tangled love affair

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — German author Jenny Erpenbeck and translator Michael Hofmann have won the International Booker Prize for the novel “Kairos.” It tells the story of a tangled love affair during the final years of East Germany’s existence. The prize recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English and published in the U.K. or Ireland. The 50,000 pounds ($64,000) in prize money is divided between author and translator. The chair of the judging panel says Erpenbeck’s novel about the relationship between a student and an older writer charts “the entanglement of personal and national transformations.”