Days of Night
Anton, an elderly professor of literature from Frankfurt, owns a house on the English coast. One day it is burgled, and although no harm comes to him or his wife, he feels sick at heart and overcome with a sense of impotence. Increasingly he finds himself thinking back to his childhood in 1940s Germany. Anton’s father, an unemployed violinist, despised Nazism, but the regime met with considerable support in the neighbourhood – and indeed with Anton’s grandparents. Unaware of the magnitude of his action, the boy denounced his father to a neighbour.
One sleepless night, driven by haunting memories and visions from his childhood, Anton leaves his house. His walk takes him along the coast—and becomes a wrestling match with his inner demons.
Atmospherically charged and profoundly compelling, Yorck Kronenberg’s novel describes the life-long effects of a tragic childhood.