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Barbara Isn’t Dying

By Alina Bronsky
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Brief Description
Walter Schmidt has lived his whole life within the narrow, comfortable confines of traditional gender roles: he has made it to retirement without learning how to fry an egg or use a vacuum cleaner. After all, he could always count on his wife, Barbara. But, when... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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A bittersweet and hilarious novel about a marriage whose decades-old routine is suddenly upended.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Walter Schmidt has lived his whole life within the narrow, comfortable confines of traditional gender roles: he has made it to retirement without learning how to fry an egg or use a vacuum cleaner. After all, he could always count on his wife, Barbara. But, when one morning she can't—or won't!—get up from bed anymore, everything changes.

With biting humour and great warmth, Alina Bronsky writes about how Walter, nearing the end of his life, is suddenly forced to reinvent himself as a caregiver and househusband, and become the caring partner he never was in all his years with Barbara. Little by little, Walter's rough facade begins to crumble, and with it his old certainties about his life and family.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781787705814

Publisher: Europa Editions (UK) Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 17 July 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Europa Editions (UK) Ltd

Contributors:

  • Translated by Tim Mohr

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 135.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 192

Collections

Alina Bronsky Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction

About the Author

Alina Bronksy is the author of Broken Glass Park (Europa, 2010); The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine (Europa, 2011), named a Best Book of 2011 by The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Publishers Weekly; Just Call Me Superhero (Europa, 2014), Baba Dunja's Last Love (Europa, 2016), and My Grandmother's Braid (Europa, 2021). Born in Yekaterinburg, an industrial town at the foot of the Ural Mountains in central Russia, Bronsky now lives in Berlin.

Tim Mohr is an award-winning translator. He has also collaborated on memoirs by musicians Gil Scott-Heron, Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses, and Paul Stanley of KISS. He is the author of Burning Down the Haus, a history of political struggle and punk music in East Germany. Prior to starting his writing career, he earned his living as a club DJ in Berlin.

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