Clearing

A compelling novel of migration, friendship, and what it means to belong.

‘When are you coming?’
Four words on a postcard change two lives.

Lev leaves the remote village in Romania where he grew up, travelling to the centre of Europe to meet his lifelong friend, Kato. When borders opened, the outcast girl fled the place where both grew up under a brutal Communist regime. Lev stayed. Now it’s his turn to discover where he belongs, and to whom. But there’s no going forward without looking back.

Iris Wolff turns back Time through the individual moments that illuminate a life. A bestseller in Germany, shortlisted for the 2024 German Book Prize, winner of the Uwe-Johnson Prize 2025 and of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literary prize 2025.

Author bio

Born in the medieval town of Sibiu, Transylvania, Iris Wolff emigrated to Germany aged eight; her fiction explores the lost world of her childhood under the dictatorial Ceaucescu regime. She has written five novels and a collection of short stories and won numerous literary prizes and awards. She lives in Freiburg in Breisgau.