Annemarie Berger, born in 1954, worked as a teacher for German and French in Germany, France, Spain and Tajikistan.
She is a founding member of the LiBeraturpreis initiative, which has been awarding a prize to women from Africa, Asia and Latin America for 25 years, e.g. B. to Maryse Condé, Assia Djebar, Yanik Lahens, Spojmai Zariab and Fatou Diome.
Today she works as a freelance translator and editor and lives near Frankfurt am Main.
In her debut autobiographical novel, Yassaman Montazami tells the story of her father Bechrus, a Marxist intellectual who, as a “true revolutionary”, does not work for a living but devotes himself to his dissertation on Karl Marx. Political refugees from Iran - from the radical left to the bourgeois wife of a high-ranking military officer - find a place to stay in the Paris apartment. Bechrus' travels to his homeland sketch a portrait of the country's history from the Shah's rule to the Islamic revolution and the time up to his death in 2006. After separating from his wife Zarah, Bechrus returns to Iran and finds himself confronted with the fate of his former comrades. Seriously ill, he returns to Paris, where Yassaman accompanies him in his last days.
Translated from the French by Jutta Himmelreich with the collaboration of Annemarie Berger