Impossible Familiar: On Julia Kornberg’s “Berlin Atomized”

Greta Rainbow wrote this for Cleveland Review of Books on Julia Kornberg's recent Berlin Atomized.

The review can be a bit much (I don't need three paragraphs on the unintentional translation of sunblock) but Kornberg's book shows a lot of promise for a first novel in an often underwhelming contemporary fiction field. I read it back in December and really enjoyed it, and the dynamic of an author translating their own work and even adding changes made in translation back to the original language text is really interesting. I'd encourage anyone interested to give the book a shot and would recommend we all keep an eye on Kornberg's work moving forward