Jaroslav Rudis Winterberg's Last Journey

Annotation

Winterberg's Last Journey follows its two main characters on an eclectic, tragicomic train journey through Central Europe - 'the beautiful landscape of battlefields, cemeteries and ruins'. When Czech nurse Jan Kraus is charged with the care of 99-year-old Wenzel Winterberg, a Sudetenland German expelled from his Bohemian homeland after the Second World War, he believes that their time together is limited. But a casual remark from Kraus one night - 'it's interesting; your name is Winterberg, and I came from Winterberg, from Vimperk in Bohemia, which used to be called Winterberg' - sparks a new life in the old man, who becomes obsessed with uncovering the fate of his lost love, Lenka Morgenstern. Kraus is then dragged along by Winterberg on a winding train journey from Berlin to Sarajevo, all the while dealing with Winterberg's regular 'historical fits'. Their only guide is Winterberg's Baedeker for Austria-Hungary from 1913 - the last edition ever issued. Shortlisted for the Prize of the Leipzig Bookfair 2019 An adventurous, tragicomic train journey through a country that has disappeared Jan Kraus works as a geriatric nurse in Berlin. He was born in Vimperk, which used to be called Winterberg, in the Bohemian Forest, and has been living in Germany since 1986. The circumstances of his leaving the Czech Republic remain his secret. And his trauma. One of his patients is Wenzel Winterberg who was born in Liberec, Reichenberg. As a Sudeten-German he was expelled from Czechoslovakia after the war. When Kraus first meets him, he is lying in bed, paralysed and absent. It is the stories that Kraus tells about his home town of Vimperk that wake Winterberg up and bring him back to life. Yet Winterberg wants more from Kraus; he wants to go on one last journey with him, on the search for his lost love – a journey that takes them both through the history of central Europe: From Berlin to Sarajevo, through Reichenberg, Prague, Vienna and Budapest. For not only Kraus is hiding a secret – Winterberg is, too.