Judith Hermann Author

I'd Like to Go Back in Time

How do the spaces and memories in which our life takes place shape us?
Judith Hermann is one of Germany's most prestigious and sucessful contemporary authors.
The cumulative sales of Judith Hermann's books exceed 1.6 million.
Her work is translated into more than 35 languages.
🎧 PODCAST: Listen to translator Katy Derbyshire read her English sample translation on our Foreign Rights Podcast Catch of the Day here! 🎧

To which places have the memories retreated?

Judith Hermann follows the traces of her grandfather, who was stationed in Radom, Poland, during the war. She thinks about what effect the little knowledge and the speechlessness in the family had - and what influence it also had on her writing. From Poland, she travels to her sister in Naples and pursues remembering and forgetting in subsequent generations. In intermediate and undertones, Judith Hermann tracks down the voids and damages of every life, but brings us a little closer to the beauty hidden therein with her magical and magnetic stories.

“Judith Hermann's books are unflinching explorations of human conditions." — Neue Zürcher Zeitung on Home

“A master storyteller.” — The Independent, London on Summerhouse, Later

“In the ‘Nobel Prize League’” — Frankfurter Rundschau on We'd Have Told Each Other Everything

Awards: Wilhelm-Raabe-Literaturpreis 2023, The Prize of LiteraTour Nord 2022, The Bremen Prize for Emerging Writers 2022, The Rheingau Literature Prize 2021, The Blixen Prize 2018 for Lettipark, The Erich Fried Prize 2014, The Friedrich Hölderlin Prize 2009, The Kleist Prize 2001, The Hugo Ball Young Writer's Award 1999, The Bremen Prize Young Writer's Award 1999

Sample Translations

English

Rights sold to

Previous titles: USA (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), UK (Granta), FR (Albin Michel), DK (Batzer), CZ (Vetrne Mlyny), ET (Arabic) (Aser Al-Kotob), IRL (Mercier Press), N (Pelikanen), NL (Meridiaan), PRC (Shanghai Literature & Art), ROK (Bada), SE (Weyler), TURK (Günötesi Yayincilik)

Publisher: S. FISCHER
Release: 25.02.2026
ISBN: 978-3-10-397764-6
160 Pages
Author: Judith Hermann

Judith Hermann I'd Like to Go Back in Time

Judith Hermann

Judith Hermann was born in Berlin in 1970. Her debut story collection Summerhouse, Later (1998) was extremely well received. It was then followed in 2003 by the story collection Nothing But Ghosts , and several of the stories contained in the latter were adapted for film in 2007. In 2009, she published Alice , five short stories that received international acclaim. Her first novel, Where Love Beginns , came out in 2014. It was followed in 2016 by the short story collection Lettipark , which was awarded the Danish Blixen Prize for Short Stories. Hermann has received numerous awards for her work, including the Kleist Prize and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize. Her novel Home was published in spring 2021. It was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize and received the Bremen Literature Prize in 2022. Most recently, S. Fischer published We'd Have Told Each Other Everything , based on the Frankfurt poetry lectures given by Judith Hermann in spring 2022. The author received the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize for this work. Judith Hermann lives and writes in Berlin.