Back to Back

Portrays the rise and fall of the state's ideals via the finely observed life of an artist and her children – a Jewish sculptor who survives to flourish, at a cost, in the GDR

Boyd Tonkin, Independent

Intoxicating... A curious fusion of stark realism tempered with quirkily stylistic flights of fancy: the trademark of one of Germany’s finest contemporary novelists

Malcolm Forbes, Literary Review

A harrowing and often difficult read, you will not be able to put this book down

UK Press Syndication

The density of tone is true to the novel’s vision of life as a claustrophobic nightmare

Kapka Kassabova, Guardian

Engaging and shocking

Blackpool Gazette

Franck skilfully contrasts the romantic language of the children’s fantasies with the bitter reality of emotional neglect

Nottingham Post

Like an expert geologist, Franck is digging deep into her family's extraordinary history creating things of beauty from its dark recesses. Diamond-hard and full of glittering prose, Back to Back is a powerful and moving book. I suspect there are more gems to come

David Annand, Sunday Telegraph

Franck is an outstanding talent of the Germany literary landscape

Stuttgarter Zeitung

A novel that, with its hypnotic language, creates its own realm of relevance... You dive back into the real world in shock

Tages Anzeiger

A virtuoso creator of poetically charged moods...never before has East Germany been so radically depicted as dead at birth as in the arresting, magical narrative web of Julia Franck

Literarische Welt

A haunting examination of the far-reaching consequences society can have on relationships

Good Book Guide