The first biography of W. G. Sebald: a robust, intricate, landmark portrait of one of the most significant and lauded cultural figures of the twentieth century

A SPECTATOR, NEW STATESMAN AND THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘The best biography I have read in years' Philippe Sands ‘Spectacular’ Observer ‘A remarkable portrait’ Guardian W. G. Sebald was one of the most extraordinary and influential writers of the twentieth century. Through books including The Emigrants, Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, he pursued an original literary vision that combined fiction, history, autobiography and photography and addressed some of the most profound themes of contemporary literature: the burden of the Holocaust, memory, loss and exile. The first biography to explore his life and work, Speak, Silence pursues the true Sebald through the memories of those who knew him and through the work he left behind. This quest takes Carole Angier from Sebald’s birth as a second-generation German at the end of the Second World War, through his rejection of the poisoned inheritance of the Third Reich, to his emigration to England, exploring the choice of isolation and exile that drove his work. It digs deep into a creative mind on the edge, finding profound empathy and paradoxical ruthlessness, saving humour, and an elusive mix of fact and fiction in his life as well as work. The result is a unique, ferociously original portrait.

"A remarkable biography . . . The first major study of revered author and academic WG Sebald reveals an obsessive and brilliant mind . . . In her long and scholarly book, a testament to the powers of research and detailed dissection, Angier has presented a remarkable portrait of a writer consumed by work" - Guardian

"Meticulously researched … The brilliance of [this] biography, a spectacularly agile work of criticism as well as a feat of doggedly meticulous research, lies in Angier’s ability to look her subject straight in the eye while holding on to the sense of adoration that made her want to write it in the first place" - Observer

"The product of years of sleuthing … Angier’s openness about the difficulties she has encountered in trying to untangle [Sebald’s] enigma if anything adds to her portrait … The portrait which ultimately emerges convinces: of a tormented man, an isolated misfit, riven by self-doubt, who wrote to stave off depressive breakdowns and even madness and suicidal impulses" - Spectator

"A suitably unorthodox life of this singular writer . . . Angier’s strategy pays off: this is an insightful, compulsively readable book" - Atlantic

"Remarkable, the definitive biography . . . Deeply researched, subtle, sympathetic" - Claire Tomalin on 'Jean Rhys'

"An acute literary intelligence . . . The reader comes to trust instinctively Angier’s assessments" - New York Times on 'Jean Rhys'

"Allows us to see Levi’s life in its full historical meaning" - Financial Times on 'The Double Bond: Primo Levi'

"Marvellous and visionary . . . Remarkable in all senses of the word" - New York Times on 'The Double Bond: Primo Levi'

"Angier writes with brio and occasional brilliance . . . By the end, I felt convinced that she had got to the heart of Levi" - Guardian on 'The Double Bond: Primo Levi'