Books like Aller Tage Abend by Jenny Erpenbeck

Aller Tage Abend is an experimental novel divided into five linked "books," each following an unnamed woman through different eras and circumstances, each ending with a unique death. The narrative opens with the death of a baby in the early twentieth‑century Habsburg Empire. The second book traces the same girl’s adolescence in Vienna, where a strained relationship with a boy leads to another tragic end. In the third scenario, she survives adolescence and relocates to Russia with her husband; both of them are dedicated Communists, yet she is dispatched to a labor camp. The fourth book shows her escape from the camp thanks to an intervention, and she later returns to Berlin, where she establishes herself as a respected writer. Between these chapters, the narrator muses, "How could it all have gone differently?" The novel thus explores themes of fate, choice, and the varied conditions shaping women's lives across history.

First publish date: 2012