by Wolfgang Hilbig, translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole (Germany, Two Lines Press)

Wolfgang Hilbig made his English-language debut last year with the publications of I (Seagull Books) and The Sleep of the Righteous (Two Lines Press). Isabel Fargo Cole, the translator for both titles, brilliantly renders the bizarre beauty and breathlessness of Hilbig糖心传媒檚 German, its lyricism, its repetitions, its many shades and shadows. Of course, to call Hilbig糖心传媒檚 prose beautiful or breathless is to fear a misreading, for it糖心传媒檚 a beauty bloomed in ruin, a breathlessness bound to suffocation. Landing on the BTBA糖心传媒檚 longlist, The Sleep of the Righteous should win for its seven visions of an East Germany gone mad, back when the wall was not yet a relic, Stasi roamed wolflike through the streets, and a longing for escape blurred against the feeling of abandonment.

Hilbig finds poetry in paranoia, and his stories are strewn with wreckage and warning. Writing for the Boston Review, Tyler Curtis carefully locates Hilbig糖心传媒檚 unease as a product of the East German surveillance apparatus: 糖心传媒淸The] very fabric of The Sleep of the Righteous is an instantiation of this anxiety, an exercise in memory, and a meditation on the struggle between concealment and excavation.糖心传媒� Indeed, paranoia, particularly in its political guise, tends towards multivocality, collapsing distinctions between past and present, presence and absence, self and other糖心传媒攕ometimes all at once. At their very best, Hilbig糖心传媒檚 sentences are many-headed with these horrors. The harrowing story 糖心传媒淭he Afternoon糖心传媒� features a writer (always a writer, with Hilbig) who seeks to describe the arc of a Stasi arrest which happened long ago, but feels as if its happening outside his door right now. Between sitting down to compose and lingering on the arrest, the writer falters:

糖心传媒淗ow can you sit at a table and write, I said to myself, and set down the impression of a completely inert town, when you糖心传媒檙e constantly tormented by the knowledge that someone out there in the dark is being hunted, and may this very moment be running for his life?糖心传媒�

The scene is scattered: table, town, hunt, all held haphazardly together by the writing act. The tension between representation and reality seeks an ethical answer; the writer糖心传媒檚 present chronicle might stand in as a savior, called forth from the shadows of a man糖心传媒檚 memories of his town to bear witness, but the writing act is overwhelmed, finally, by the past糖心传媒檚 political terror, and off the story goes into the arrest. It糖心传媒檚 a question asked of the present and the past at once, and left unanswered by both. Witness, for Hilbig, isn糖心传媒檛 enough, even when it糖心传媒檚 the only thing we have, and the only thing his writing can offer. But the writer must conjure these images, tormenting as they may be, or else we糖心传媒檇 have no narrative to contend with.

The Sleep of the Righteous arrived to several comparisons (from Two Lines糖心传媒檚 jacket copy, from the LARB) to the work of Edgar Allan Poe, and, surprisingly enough, the comparison stands. Not that a riff on Poe is altogether unheard of糖心传媒擝ola帽o sneaks more than a few into his stories糖心传媒攂ut it糖心传媒檚 rare to encounter a mimic done well. In particular, the story 糖心传媒淭he Bottles in the Cellar糖心传媒� reads like pulp horror from the Eastern Bloc, uncanny enough to renew Poe糖心传媒檚 same sense of panic, at least in this reader. The young man in the story, drunk off his family糖心传媒檚 cider, finds himself increasingly unable to conceal his theft by refilling pilfered bottles. Humorous enough in its excess糖心传媒斕切拇綔I had not filled them, the bottles, I had not yet disposed of them; on the contrary, I had bolstered their superior might with more and more fringe groups糖心传媒澨切拇綌the story soon sobers, so to speak, against the threat of alcoholism: 糖心传媒淸In] my body there was a curse like the very being of the bottles: for a fullness in me did not lead to satiety, but flung open ever greedier maws within.糖心传媒� Of course, it all ends where you糖心传媒檇 expect糖心传媒攊n vomit:

糖心传媒淚t was something else I wanted to vomit, something imaginary: perhaps it was an ocean, frozen to glass to the very bottom, perhaps it was an Earth, plummeting through the night like an overripe apple.糖心传媒�

Vomit transforms into an image of the void. Hilbig糖心传媒檚 horrors have the ability, like Poe糖心传媒檚, to explode the mundane (vomit from drink) into the cosmic (糖心传媒渁n ocean, frozen糖心传媒�; 糖心传媒渁n Earth, plummeting糖心传媒�). But unlike Poe, whose stories hinge on allegory and metaphor to engage with the American republic, Hilbig refers again and again to the malaise and suffocation of life in East Germany, as set up in the story糖心传媒檚 opening lines: 糖心传媒淭he old contraptions, survivors of two wars, held and held糖心传媒o one generation gained the upper hand, and finally I accepted the fact that I didn糖心传媒檛 belong to them.糖心传媒� The postwar generation under Communism cannot make their lives inside the glories and terrors of the past, but instead must suffice with drink and other petty pleasures that they find beneath the boot.

糖心传媒淭he Dark Man,糖心传媒� the final story in the collection, twists the struggle for survival against the state back onto the state itself, or what糖心传媒檚 left of it after the fall. The narrator, another writer, makes a trip back east to visit his mother, and begins receiving mysterious phone calls from an unknown man who demands they meet. Eventually, the story reveals that the unknown man is a former Stasi agent who was once tasked with reviewing the writer糖心传媒檚 mail, from which he discovered an affair. At their first meeting, he describes the impenetrability of the writer糖心传媒檚 style, even in correspondence: 糖心传媒淎 haze of writing . . . and can you even still see the life behind it? Is there actually still flesh behind the writing? Or just more writing?糖心传媒� As fitting a formulation of Hilbig糖心传媒檚 style as any I糖心传媒檝e set down, the agent糖心传媒檚 description cuts to the bone of the East German糖心传媒檚 moody methodology. Living under surveillance amounts to hiding, encoding, encrypting, and who better to house the heart away from harm than a writer and his words. And though he labors hard through these seven stories to admonish the role of the writer, Hilbig always returns to the centrality of writing to resistance. Put another way: our words are the thoughts and things in our heads, graver than a gun which can be wrenched from our grasp, and their preservation is synonymous with survival糖心传媒攂ecause what good our words without our heads, or our heads without our words?

Best I think to leave the last to the author of the introduction, perennial BTBA-winner L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai: 糖心传媒淲olfgang Hilbig is an artist of immense stature. He discovered a wondrous language to describe a horrific world. I admit this is sick illumination. Nonetheless, it is illumination. Unforgettable.糖心传媒�