Umbrella - Hardcover

The narrator of Timm's story is a writer who simply can't get started on his next book. So he accepts a commission to write an article about potatoes. He has some interest in the subject because of an uncle who could, remarkably, from taste alone, differentiate one species of potato from another. Since it turns out that one of the authorities on the subject worked in East Berlin, our hero takes off to do some research. Rushing between the East and West sectors of the now-united city the narrator becomes involved in a series of madcap adventures: odd, sometimes threatening encounters with all sorts of people, and strange entanglements.

Peter Tegel fled Sudetenland, a region of the former Czechoslovakia, at the age of six with his Czech-German family. He escaped to Britain to avoid the Nazis and then graduated from Balliol College, Oxford. He has produced translations of German, French and Russian literature. Currently, Tegel is co-chair of the Pushkin Club, a nonpolitical organization in London that is dedicated to Russian artistic and literary culture.

Uwe Timm was born in Hamburg, Germany. His first novel, Hot Summer, was published in 1974. New Directions publishes five of his novels, including the German best selling, The Invention of Curried Sausage, and the award winning, Morenga. After apprenticing as a furrier, Timm studied philosophy and philology in Paris and Munich. He is the 1989 winner of the Munich Literary Prize. He has been called an "extraordinary story teller" (The New Yorker) and "one of the best living German Writers" (Kirkus Reviews).

Peter Tegel fled Sudetenland, a region of the former Czechoslovakia, at the age of six with his Czech-German family. He escaped to Britain to avoid the Nazis and then graduated from Balliol College, Oxford. He has produced translations of German, French and Russian literature. Currently, Tegel is co-chair of the Pushkin Club, a nonpolitical organization in London that is dedicated to Russian artistic and literary culture.