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The sea view has me again : Uwe Johnson in Sheerness

Wright, Patrick2021
Books
Towards the end of 1974, a stranger arrived in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey. He could often be found sitting at the bar in the Napier Tavern, drinking lager and smoking Gauloises while flicking through the pages of the Kent Evening Post. 'Charles' was the name he offered to his new acquaintances. But this unexpected immigrant was actually Uwe Johnson, originally from the Baltic province of Mecklenburg in the GDR, and already famous as the leading author of a divided Germany. This book examines the factors that caused him to abandon West Berlin and spend the last nine years of his life in Sheerness, where he eventually completed his great New York novel 'Anniversaries' in a house overlooking the outer reaches of the Thames Estuary.
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