Description: Historical fiction centered around the life and tragic death of the German Romantic poet and philosopher Karoline von Günderrode.
Brief description: David Farrell Krell is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University, Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg. He is the author of many books, including Struck by Apollo: Hölderlin's Journeys to Bordeaux and Back and Beyond and A Black Forest Walden: Conversations with Henry David Thoreau and Marlonbrando, both by SUNY Press.
Review Quotes:
"The subject matter of this epistolary novel is certainly in part the biography of Karoline von Günderrode, but it is much more. The manuscript moves relentlessly on two interrelated and coherent fronts, around the themes of eros and thanatos, love and death. Krell puts you along the path that Günderrode travelled and allows you to travel alongside her and intimately share her experience of love and loss, freedom and restrictive societal norms, passion and logic, life and death. Krell's originality lies in his ability to play at the margins between reality and fantasy, between history and fiction, between imaginative embellishment and precise accounting." - Walter Brogan, Villanova University