Born in 1943, Ultiskaya grew up in Moscow, the daughter of Jewish parents, and entered the workforce in the 1960s as a geneticist, before a run-in with the KGB closed the lab where she worked. This episode was later fictionalised in her novel Big Green Tent, one of many novels, plays and short stories that depict the lives of private individuals getting by within the Soviet machine. Through these works – notably Sonechka, Medea and Her Children, The Kukotsky Enigma, Daniel Stein, Interpreter and Jacob’s Ladder – she has amassed numerous literary awards, including Russia’s most prestigious book prizes, France’s Prix Medicis and a nomination for the Man Booker international prize. In 2020, Ulitskaya had the same odds (6/1) as Margaret Atwood and Maryse Condé to win the Nobel. This is what complex, and dreadfully boring compulsory reads are made of. The type of literature that all but demands a veritable treatise on brilliant characterization and marvelous usage of figures of speech. I always suspected, that had my high school major been literature related, I would've totally failed these assignments. As it is, I managed to coast by with a B, while most of the class reveled in As and A+es. A small treasure. This is no ordinary novel. . . [with] highly poetic yet unpretentious language. . . and affectionately depicted, peculiar characters. The final chapter did, in fact, bring tears to my eyes. I strongly recommend this novel to anyone interested in literature.”

Originally published in German in 2017, it is primarily the story of young Luisa and her grandmother, Selma, living life in small town Germany. Whenever Selma dreams of an okapi, someone always seems to die. (Get your fingers ready to google… an okapi is a real animal that looks like a cross between a zebra and a giraffe.) The book never truly enters magical realism territory but rather hovers close to superstition, making it feel like a 20th century European fable. Some of the villagers avoided all activity the entire day; some even longer. Elsbeth once told Martin and me that years earlier, on the day after one of Selma’s dreams, the retired mailman had stopped moving altogether. He was convinced that any movement could mean death; he remained convinced for days, even months after Selma’s dream, long after someone had in fact died in accordance with the dream’s dictate, the shoemaker’s mother. The mailman simply stayed in his chair. His immobile joints became inflamed, his blood became clotted and finally came to a standstill halfway through his body at the very moment that his mistrusted heart stopped beating. The retired mailman lost his life from fear of losing it. Luisa, Selma’s ten-year-old granddaughter, looks on as the predictable characters of her small world begin acting strangely. Though they claim not to be superstitious, each of her neighbors newly grapples with buried secrets and deferred decisions that have become urgent in the face of death. Luisa, Selma's ten-year-old granddaughter, looks on as the predictable characters of her small world begin acting strangely. Though they claim not to be superstitious, each of her neighbors newly grapples with buried secrets and deferred decisions that have become urgent in the face of death.

I loved this novel truly, madly, deeply." --Nina George, bestselling author of The Book of Dreams and The Little Paris Bookshop Luise lives in a small town in Germany with her parents, friends, and a grandmother who dreams of an okapi right before someone dies. There’s love and loss and scads of lessons that are human. It’s a tale of simple life, a view into Luise’s world as she grows up. Luisa’s mother struggles to decide whether to end her marriage. An old family friend, known only as the optician, tries to find the courage to tell Selma he loves her. Only sad Marlies remains unchanged, still moping around her house and cooking terrible food. But when the prophesied death finally comes, the circumstances fall outside anyone’s expectations. The loss forever changes Luisa and shapes her for years to come, as she encounters life’s great questions alongside her devoted friends, young and old. On finishing What You Can See from Here, I was bereft. I dare you to try to read this book slowly. Central to the story is the idea of how much of the world to let into our lives, how much each of us can actually manage. Well, I implore you to let this book into your life. It's a wonder you won't forget." I looked at Martin’s part. His father had combed his blond hair with a wet comb and a few strands were still dark.

My father claimed it was complete and utter nonsense and that our delusion came from the fact that we allowed too little of the world into our lives. He was always saying: “You’ve got to let more of the world in.” I wish to thank the author and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an advance copy to review via NetGalley. What You Can See from Here is now available. On a beautiful spring day, a small tranquil village in the Westerwald wakes up to hear that Selma (Corinna Harfouch, Downfall, Deutschland89) has had a premonition: she dreamt of a rare animal again - an okapi. This means that someone is about to die and the eccentric villagers know it. Selma's granddaughter, 11-year-old Luise, and her best friend Martin look on as fears of being the victim of the prophecy throw the village into a frenzy of confusion. Luise doesn't want to lose anyone, but when the premonition comes true, the young girl’s world is suddenly turned upside down.and for the rest of the story, I found myself glued to the book both anticipating and dreading the next death. There were a few more heart-wrenching sequences in store, that ended up being completely unimportant... for me, at least. I'm sure the characters will beg to differ. However the gist of the story is about love, and how it can sneak up on the most unsuspecting people in the most unlikely manner, and then refuse to let its 'victims' go, in spite of their best efforts. An okapi does not look remotely sinister. It couldn’t possibly, even if it tried very hard to, which, as far as anyone knows, it rarely does. Even if crows and screech owls had been fluttering around its head in Selma’s dream—to a fully sinister effect—the okapi still would have made a very mild impression. A few people felt it was high time to air hidden truths. They wrote unusually wordy letters with talk of always and never. They felt one should bring truthfulness to life—at least at the very last minute. And hidden truths, these people believed, are the most truthful of all. Left untouched, they harden over the years and, being kept secret and confined to immobility, these truths grow bulkier with time. Even truth itself wants out in extremis. Anyone holding a secret truth risks an especially agonizing end, a lengthy tug-of-war with Death pulling on one side and the bloated, hidden truth on the other. A secret truth does not want to perish in hiding. Having spent its life buried, it wants to be released, even if only for a short time, either to spread its fetid stink and appall everyone, or to show that, exposed to the light of day, it isn’t so terrible or fearsome after all. Just before the supposed end, a hidden truth urgently wants a second opinion. Daas’s depiction of Paris has been hailed by critics, showing young people marooned in suburbs only 15km from Paris, but with no direct transportation. Her beautifully drawn descriptions of endless hours on public transport were Daas’s way of exploring a commute she once considered “normal”, then grew to see as an “injustice”.Daas’s overriding message is that you don’t have to give up any part of yourself: you can inhabit a host of seemingly clashing identities at once. “I wanted to smash the codes and norms that everyone has to navigate,” Daas says. “I wanted to talk to everyone who ever felt they had to give up a part of themselves and say: ‘No, we don’t have to.’” Angelique Chrisafis