The bestselling voice of Europe's fastest-growing, fastest-living city: the new Berlin. 'The little jewellery box also held the red coral bracelet from Nikolai Sergeyevich. Its six hundred and seventy-five little coral beads were strung onto a silken thread, and they glowed as red as rage. My great-grandmother put the hairbrush down in her lap. She closed her eyes for a long time. Then she opened her eyes again, took the red coral bracelet from the little box and fastened it around her left wrist. Her skin was very white. That evening, for the first time in three years, she shared a meal with my great-grandfather.' Coral bracelets 'as red as rage' from Russian lovers; a sad old woman who nonetheless 'sometimes sang and winked with her left eye and laughed till the tears came'; country houses 'away from Berlin, linden trees out front, chestnuts in the back, sky above': 'The Summer House, Later' is an elegant, measured, reflective collection of stories which captures beautifully the promise of bright colours lying just out of reach of our grey daily routines. Set in and around Europe's fastest-growing, fastest-living city, these stories take as their starting point the monotony of modern urban life -- the endless antennas and chimneys, the pigeons in the gutters -- and looks beyond them to 'the narrow strip of sky over the rooftops'. The literary sensation of the year in her native Germany, Judith Hermann is a wonderfully talented young writer whose ability to find drama and beauty in the smallest, most trivial moments makes 'The Summer House, Later' a very special debut indeed.

尤迪特·海爾曼(Judith Hermann)：德國女作傢。1970年生於柏林。當過酒吧服務生，在紐約做過實習記者。1997年獲阿爾弗雷德·德布林奬學金，專心創作一年，完成短篇小說集《夏屋，以後》。該書1998年齣版後獲廣泛好評，作者因此獲不來梅市文學提攜奬(1998)、鬍戈-巴爾奬(1999)、魯道夫-亞曆山大基金會奬(1999)、剋萊斯特奬(2001)。2003年，她的短篇小說集《不過是幽靈而已》齣版，在德國亦大受讀者歡迎。