The Water-castle

A new edition of a classic originally published in 1964, this is a journal of love, romance, and discord in 1950s postwar Germany. As Welsh artist and poet Elizabeth Greatorex travels with her French husband to meet her former lover Klaus, a German count, she maps a snow-bound landscape of desire against the hardening borders of a newly divided Germany. In her revealing diary, she records her struggle to bridge the distance between Wales and Germany while considering her own mythologized past and real, diminished present. This fascinating story pits creative idealism, emotional hunger, and sexual longing against the brutal displacements of postwar Europe.