VIRTUAL - Goethe Book Club: "Belonging" by Nora Krug

Meet to discuss works from contemporary German-speaking authors in with the Goethe Book Club hosted by Chris Walker. Each selection can be read in its English translation or original German; the discussion will be in English.

About the book: In her celebrated graphic memoir from 2018, Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home (German title: “Heimat“), Nora Krug delves into her family’s troubled history and the long shadow cast by the Holocaust. Poignant and visually stunning, the novel takes the form of a family scrapbook containing fragments of archival documents, photographs, sketches, and handwritten messages.

Through her extraordinary quest, Krug pieces together the hidden truths of her family’s involvement in the war and reflects on what it means to be a German of her generation. Belonging was chosen as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, the Guardian, NPR, Kirkus Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. It was the winner of the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, Nora Krug is Associate Professor of Illustration at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.

You may also choose to attend a reading and discussion with the author on May 6th. This event will be presented in partnership with the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department of the University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) and the International Relations Council (IRC).

Image: © Nora Krug