A story of the twentieth century told through the various lives of one woman. By tracing the five possible lives and the five deaths of one woman whose life spans, or fails to span, the twentieth century, the magical, magisterial author of VISITATION exposes the machinations of what we call 'fate' - actually inexplicable and undetermined, an interplay of culture and history, of family and personal entanglements.

JENNY ERPENBECK is author of Visitation (2010) and The Old Child & The Book of Words (2008), both published by Portobello. Her fiction is published in fourteen languages.