Arnon Grunberg
10. December 2007 18:56
Arnon Grunberg is one of the most subtly outrageous provocateurs in world literature. Born in 1971 in Amsterdam into a German-Jewish family, he stepped aside to unnerve a wider audience.
“I really need enemies—without enemies there’s no identity.”
For Grunberg—read talent. This Christmas he’s in Nepal or Belarus. We see him as a waiter, a masseuse in Bucharest, working undercover in a Bavarian hotel, in Guantánamo Bay, visiting the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s why he moved to Park Avenue.
“I like observing. There’s a spy in all authors.”
Grunberg shares a natural affinity with Isaac Babel—not just the glasses—but the love of life, the heart of darkness—“brutal and altogether winning.”
His work includes: Blue Mondays, Silent Extras, Phantom Pain, The History of My Baldness, The Asylum Seeker, The Jewish Messiah, Tirza, and Amuse-Bouche. A collection of essays—Chambermaids and Soldiers— recalls his time in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Arnon Grunberg lives in New York.