At the next Litfest International Fiction Online Book Club meeting we will discuss Judith Hermann’s new book We Would Have Told Each Other Everything (translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire and published in paperback and eBook by Granta Magazine Editions)

‘Very occasionally a book comes along that feels as if it were written just for me, and this is one of those rare books. All my life’s defining concerns, as a writer and a woman, are here, and Hermann conveys and examines them with generosity and honesty and insight’ – Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Pond and Checkout 19

‘Many writers have attempted to write about the essential moments of life in which everything happens, yet few have achieved the terrifying, numbing accuracy of Judith Hermann’ Irish Times

‘Every story has its first line. Not the line with which the story begins in the book; the line with which it begins in my mind…’

In a series of three interconnected stories, Judith Hermann captures those moments when reality shifts: a friendship that unravels, salt-bright summers on the North Sea, an unconventional childhood, and the weight of familial trauma. Part literary meditation, part memoir, part novel, this work explores the delicate art of transforming life into literature, challenging our deepest and sometimes darkest assumptions about memory, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves.

‘This book . . . has incredible energy and beauty and brutality and radiance’ – Die Zeit

‘In this book [Hermann] makes it admirably clear how confidently she can transform even the difficult, the barely bearable, the deadly dark into great literature’ – Der Spiegel