Chorus of the Erinyes

Her husband left the house in a hurry without further explanation. A friend from childhood days turns up unexpectedly, and her usually reserved mother suddenly wields a mysterious power. Mathilda, a pragmatic and reserved teacher, is becoming scared of herself. Has she inherited second sight from her mother? She is forced to see her visions manifest in reality. Something dark within her tries to speak out, her handwriting takes on a life of its own, winged women occupy more and more space in her everyday life. There are forest fires and bizarre healing rituals, questionable gifts. A wind whose whispering seems strangely familiar to her arises. Is she actually hearing the chorus of the Erinyes?

Humorously, poetically and with great originality, Marion Poschmann writes about conformist girlfriends and rebellious mothers, about crimes against nature and its fragile beauty, about the demonisation of women and the power of connection. Chorus of the Erinyes is not a sequel but a parallel story to Poschmann’s previous novel, The Pine Islands, which was extremely successful with critics and the public alike.

»There is hardly any other author writing in German who is able to produce such a perfectly balanced mix of lyricism and linguistic reflection, of humour and profundity.« SWR

»[Chorus of the Erinyes] is a brilliant and deadly serious comedy about contemporary life... It is almost impossible to resist the “spooky action at a distance” of this novel of Erinyes because it counters the flat realism of German-language literature with a surprisingly tragicomic multi-dimensionality. Never before have mythology, mothers, and mathematics been united so intimately.« Paul Jandl, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»Marion Poschmann’s magic realism captures the reader’s imagination from the first page to the last.« Dorothea von Törne, NZZ am Sonntag

»Uncanny and brilliant!« Barbara Beer, Kurier.at

»Literature with leaves in its hair.« Paul Jandl, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»A book like this is a gem, which won’t leave you so quickly, and won’t come along again too quickly either.« Judith von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau

»While the novel’s underlying theme of the irruption of the uncontrollable into an orderly life is as simple as it is familiar, the language in which Marion Poschmann unfurls this story is entirely fresh. She observes with precision and writes with an unfailing ear for the rhythm of phrasing.« Dirk Hohnsträter, WDR Online

»[Poschmann is] one of the most intelligent and renowned German-language authors of her generation…...« Beate Tröger, der Freitag

»Shifting between poetic and prosaic language, [Poschmann] has written a dizzying work about fatal reason, mythical gender roles, and the deadly logic of the destruction of nature.« Carsten Otte, taz. die tageszeitung

»Poetry, myth, and the mean reality of everyday life: Marion Poschmann’s writing is characterised by a witty and crafty weaving together of these elements.« ORF

»Marion Poschmann has a special talent for writing about people and nature: you would be hard-pressed to find another writer who exposes the academic middle class with such delicate derision. Nowhere do ash trees, oaks, beech and birch trees sway, nowhere do hurricanes swirl, clouds conglomerate with such opulence and yet in language that is as light as a feather as in her prose and poetry. Both come together in Chorus of the Erinyes...« Sabine Rohlf, Berliner Zeitung

»Chorus of the Erinyes is a linguistic feast, a respite from all the banal everyday language of the prose that makes up a large portion of German contemporary literature, which unfortunately only lasts for a little shy of 200 pages...« Andreas Platthaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»The way Marion Poschmann combines sketches of nature with mythical imagery, the real with the absurd, the way she follows the gradual dissociation processes of her character is truly masterful.« Ulrich Rüdenauer, Der Tagesspiegel

»With Chorus of the Erinyes, Marion Poschmann has created a darkly beautiful work of prose about the threats of internal and external nature, a novel that is worth not just reading, but also studying.« Ö1, Ex Libris

»Marion Poschmann’s novel blurs the lines between reality and fantasy.« Radio Bremen