“Julia Kornberg’s Berlin Atomized is a lucid and incredibly intriguing novel. It is both a coming-of-age journey, fueled by the restless rage of adolescence, and an odyssey into a starkly realistic vision of a world on the verge of collapse . . . From its first pages, the book immerses readers in a labyrinthine, razor-sharp prose . . . Existential and sadly prophetic, Berlin Atomized offers a glimpse of the looming collapse we face and the persistence of the human desire to feel alive despite it . . . With a biting voice, Kornberg crafts an all-encompassing narrative that transcends the boundaries of the traditional novel. By the end, one feels the need to return to the beginning, as though to confirm it is the same book that has unfolded all along.”
—Jessica Ruetter, Jewish Book Council
“Kornberg, not yet 30, is a burgeoning talent. Her flickering, unflinching prose, which she herself helped translate from the original Spanish, makes you feel the siblings’ despair on every page . . . The universe inside this book is not one any of us would want to spend time in—but Kornberg constructs and inhabits it with care and command.”
—E. Kinney Zalesne, Moment Magazine
“Berlin Atomized is a globetrotting romp, a contra-hegemonic assault on the bullshit of a decaying, cowardly bourgeoisie seeking comfort in a history that never quite ended and a moving, even harrowing bildungsroman.”
—Federico Perelmuter, Full Stop
★ “Capturing a lost generation that feels both timeless and particular in its ironic fatalism and its various intellectual, artistic, and political responses to a broken world, this novel will be of interest to the international literary community. / A striking debut from a new global voice.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A slyly adventurous book with markings of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad . . . Berlin Atomized constantly surprises and charms.”
—Sam Franzini, Our Culture
“Berlin Atomized is a beautifully human and deeply affecting debut novel by Julia Kornberg following three Jewish siblings as they grow up, fall apart, and search for one another across a burning, drifting world. Julia Kornberg writes with a truly promising voice that marks the arrival of a bold and original new talent in contemporary fiction.”
—Iddo Gefen in GOLDA
“Argentine writer Kornberg debuts with an evocative portrait of disaffected youth and an unsettling, war-torn near future . . . Readers will look forward to seeing what Kornberg does next.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Remarkable, tender, funny…[Berlin Atomized is] a novel in fragments floating in the great events of immanent youth.”
—Pola Oloixarac, author of Mona
“A punk song of lost innocence and the madness of history, this brilliant debut brings a new name, and a potent style, to the table: Julia Kornberg.”
—Carlos Fonseca, author of Austral
“Ironic and always brilliant, tender and at the same time ruthless, with dazzling intelligence and whip-like sentences that showcase truth in every paragraph, this novel by Julia Kornberg imagines, invokes and exorcises the ghosts of her generation.”
—Federico Falco, author of A Perfect Cemetery
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