'I' - Paperback

by Wolfgang Hilbig (Author), Isabel Fargo Cole (Translator)

The perfect book for paranoid times, "I" introduces us to W, a mere hanger-on in East Berlin's postmodern underground literary scene. All is not as it appears, though, as W is actually a Stasi informant who reports to the mercurial David Bowie look-alike Major Feuerbach. But are political secrets all that W is seeking in the underground labyrinth of Berlin? In fact, what W really desires are his own lost memories, the self undone by surveillance: his "I."
First published in Germany in 1993 and hailed as an instant classic, "I" is a black comedy about state power and the seductions of surveillance. Its penetrating vision seems especially relevant today in our world of cameras on every train, bus, and corner. This is an engrossing read, available now for the first time in English.
"[Hilbig writes as] Edgar Allan Poe could have written if he had been born in Communist East Germany."--Los Angeles Review of Books

Author Biography

Wolfgang Hilbig (1941-2007) was a German writer who was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize for his life's work. Isabel Fargo Cole is an American writer and translator based in Berlin. Her translations include All the Roads Are Open, The Jew Car, and Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Selected Essays, all published by Seagull Books.