Peters, Christoph 1966-

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Peters, Christoph 1966-

PERSONAL:

Born 1966, in Kalkar, Germany. Education: Studied painting at the National Academy of Arts, Karlsruhe, Germany, 1988-94.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Berlin, Germany.

CAREER:

Freelance writer. Worked as an aircraft passenger tester, Frankfurt, Germany, 1995-99.

AWARDS, HONORS:

"Aspekte" Prize for the best German-language literary debut, 1999.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Stadt, Land, Fluss (title means "Town, Country, River"), Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt (Frankfurt, Germany), 1999.

Das Tuch Aus Nacht, btb (Munich, Germany), 2003, translated by John Cullen as The Fabric of Night, Nan A. Talese Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Ein Zimmer im Haus Des Krieges, btb (Munich, Germany), 2006.

OTHER

Kommen und Gehen, Manchmal Bleiben: 14 Geschichten (short stories), Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt (Frankfurt, Germany), 2001.

Heinrich Grewents Arbeit und Liebe: Eine Erzählung, btb (Munich, Germany), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

German-born writer Christoph Peters began his career as an art student, studying painting at the National Academy of Arts at Karlsruhe. When he became a writer, Peters translated his artist's precision into careful and exact word choice. The protagonist of his first novel, Stadt, Land, Fluss, is an art history student who falls in love with and marries his dentist, Hanna. Hanna mysteriously disappears, and Peters traces the man's resulting decline. The book was critically acclaimed upon publication, and went on to win the Aspekte Prize, awarded each year for the best German-language literary debut. Peters has written several other books and a collection of short stories, but Das Tuch Aus Nacht is the first to be published in English translation, released in 2007 as The Fabric of Night. The book tells the story of a German-born sculptor—again revisiting Peters's early artistic experiences—named Albin Kranz, who is on vacation with his girlfriend in Istanbul. Albin drinks too much and his relationship is in a precarious place, but he notices very little of this because he believes he has witnessed a murder; the only problem is that no one is willing to acknowledge the crime, or even that the victim in question ever existed. Dennis Drabelle, writing for Book World, remarked: "This novel breaks rules and gets away with it. It looks like a thriller, acts like a character study and leaves the reader pondering its own narrative structure." He went on to note that, ultimately, Peters focuses more on "depicting the heroism and hubris of trying to penetrate a foreign nation's criminal milieu, than in spinning a puzzle-plot," but despite this variance from standard mystery structure, he found the book "absorbing and strangely satisfying." A contributor for Kirkus Reviews wrote: "Confusing at times, disturbing at others, Peters's work rewards the challenge of reading with lasting, moody reflections."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book World, January 28, 2007, Dennis Drabelle, "Death in Istanbul: A Tourist Sees a Murder, but No One Believes Him—And There's No Body," review of The Fabric of Night, p. 6.

Booklist, November 15, 2003, review of Kommen und Gehen, Manchmal Bleiben: 14 Geschichten, p. 590.

Economist, April 15, 2000, "Recent Fiction from Germany," review of Stadt, Land, Fluss, p. 14.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2006, review of The Fabric of Night, p. 983.

Library Journal, November 15, 2006, Joy Humphrey, review of The Fabric of Night, p. 59.

Publishers Weekly, October 30, 2006, review of The Fabric of Night, p. 37.

Times Literary Supplement, October 8, 1999, review of Stadt, Land, Fluss, p. 7.

World Literature Today, summer-autumn, 2002, Elizabeth Powers, review of Kommen und Gehen, Manchmal Bleiben, p. 119.