IF there is one book you must read this year it is . . .

No. Stop right there.

But many reviewers fail to do so.

They burble on, telling us what we must read.

They do so without knowing a jot about our likes and dislikes, our preferred reading genre or life experiences that may colour our choice of book.

No such dogmatic instructions are given here.

Instead my wholehearted recommendation for Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck comes with the rider that it is deeply influenced by personal experiences, emotions and mental quirks.

I have walked those streets, in those times, experienced the suspicions in every encounter.

In other words, it may not be for everyone despite enormous sales and  endless plaudits.

That it won the International Booker Prize could well be sufficient deterrent for many.  However …

Unsurprisingly, it gripped me on so many fronts.                                      

I was enthralled by the writing, by the relationship between the two main characters and the powerful influence wreaked upon them by the dominating background to their story.

Suffice to say it vividly recalled passages of my past; held a mirror to incidents and encounters. Took my mind back down the years, travelling routes that continue to stay strong in the memory.

Further details, however, are for other times, other places. Meanwhile …

The initial encounter between young student Katarina and  much older lecturer and writer Hans occurs by pure chance. Unexpected and unplanned by either.

Neither hesitates. The magnetic pull of each for the other is too strong to resist.

Hans, a married man, blithely contrives a workaround for his situation; one which Katarina willingly accepts.

Love rules.

So does the menacing, brooding and unforgiving Berlin Wall.  This ominous instrument of division and control worms its insidous way into all aspects of daily life – a fractured country, a fractured city and fractured families and relationships.

Katarina and Hans are no exception. The Wall — a symbol of their increasingly fraught and duplicitous relationship — will crumble out of existence.

Inevitably, so will the society it dominates.

Leaving the reader fearing for the outcome of the two lovers’ precarious affair.

Erpenbeck’s prose is concise and taut, clear and sparkling as the best crystal.  A joy to read as those sad and tragic times are writ clear and large on the page.

She portrays so vividly the pall under which everyone lived and worked, suspicious of every aspect of the daily grind. Who to trust, who to doubt, even to fear.

It is vivid tale told on several levels yet all are interlinked. The domino effect in full flight.

It grips to the very end; the outcome might be invitable but outcomes exist in many shades, in numerous variations..

One of which is the rare experience of having freedom of choice. Unfettered, uncontrolled.

Which path will the lovers decide to take?

Together? Or torn asunder like the regime that dominated their existence for so long?

Recommended ***** 
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, Granta Publications, £9.99 from Waterstones