Reading Order
AusterlitzW.G. Sebald Austerlitz Reading Order
W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz (2001) is one of the most haunting novels of the twentieth century's end — the story of Jacques Austerlitz, an architectural historian who has repressed the memory of being sent to England on the Kindertransport as a child, and the narrator who meets him over a period of years in railway stations and museums across Europe. Sebald's method is unlike any other: long, undivided paragraphs that move from architecture to history to memory without transition, interspersed with black-and-white photographs that both illustrate and haunt the prose. Austerlitz is the culmination of Sebald's project of understanding what the Holocaust did to European memory and European space, and it is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels written in German since the Second World War.
Where to start
Austerlitz
Complete Austerlitz Book List
- 1Buy
Austerlitz
W.G. Sebald·2001·Sebald's final and greatest novel — Jacques Austerlitz's gradual recovery of his suppressed childhood identity; the culmination of his exploration of memory, history, and the Holocaust's effects on European consciousness - 2Buy
The Emigrants
W.G. Sebald·1992·Sebald's first major fiction — four portraits of displaced European Jews whose lives were destroyed by the Third Reich; the essential predecessor to Austerlitz and the best introduction to Sebald's method - 3Buy
The Rings of Saturn
W.G. Sebald·1995·Sebald's walking memoir of the Suffolk coast — an extended meditation on decay, memory, and the violence underneath European civilization; the most accessible entry point for readers new to Sebald - 4Buy
Vertigo
W.G. Sebald·1990·Sebald's first prose fiction — four related pieces organized around journeys in Italy; the earliest development of the method that reaches its fullest expression in Austerlitz
Austerlitz — Frequently Asked Questions
What order should I read W.G. Sebald in?
Most readers start with The Rings of Saturn, which is the most approachable, then The Emigrants, then Austerlitz. Reading them in this order lets you understand Sebald's method before encountering it in its most concentrated form. Vertigo is often read last as an interesting early example.
What is Sebald's style like?
Sebald's prose is completely distinctive: very long paragraphs, no chapter breaks, a narrator who moves between first and third person without announcement, black-and-white photographs embedded in the text that both illustrate and mysteriously haunt what surrounds them, and a movement from observation to digression to history to memory that feels more like consciousness than conventional narrative.
What is Austerlitz about?
Austerlitz follows an architectural historian named Jacques Austerlitz who, late in life, begins to uncover a childhood he has repressed: he was sent to England on the Kindertransport in 1939, and the family he was placed with never told him his true identity. The novel follows his gradual reconstruction of his past and his attempts to trace what happened to his parents.
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