A Sorrow Beyond Dreams A Life Story

<p><b>Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke--“the extravagantly talented Austrian playwright of chutzpah, novelist of sensibility, poet of linguistic games” (<i>Kirkus</i>)--ponders the life and early death of his mother</b><br><br>"The Sunday edition of the <i>Kärntner Volkszeitung </i>carried the following item under ‘Local News': ‘In the village of A. (G. township), a housewife, aged 51, committed suicide on Friday night by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.'"<br><br>So opens <i>A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, </i>Handke's reckoning with his mother's life--which spanned the rise of the Nazis, World War II, and postwar suffering--and death. Both stark and lyrical, full of love, anger, admiration, and a keen sense of history, this slim book reveals Handke at his most lucid and direct. It is the most moving and accessible work in his distinguished career; it is "indispensable" (Bill Marx, <i>The Boston Globe</i>).</p>