Austerlitz

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [vi], 415. Burgundy cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. B/w illustrations throughout. Translated from the German by Anthea Bell.

The fourth of the author's books to be translated into English. Published shortly before his tragic death in a motoring accident. National Book Critics Circle Award Winner for Fiction in 2001. Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of their 10 best books for 2001. Over the course of a thirty-year conversation conducted at train stations across Europe, the book's narrator, and a nameless companion attempt to unravel the riddle of the former's identity. Sebald's usual hallmarks – the strange photographic inserts in the text, the shifting tangential asides on a variety of subjects – are all present here.