Marzahn, Mon Amour

 Marzahn, Mon Amour

Reviewed By  Grasshopper2       November 10, 2026

 

Author  Katja Oskamp, translated by Jo Heinrich

Distributor:      UNSW Bookshop
ISBN:                 9781908670694
Publisher:         Peirene Press Ltd
Release Date:   1 November 2026  

   Website:   https://www.bookshop.unsw.edu.au/details.cgi?ITEMNO=9781908670694

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Marzahn, Mon Amour is and incredibly uplifting and warming story. The author, Katja Oskamp, describes life when she reached the age of forty-four as akin to swimming across a big lake. At this age she felt she was halfway across the lake and “flagging from the tedium of swimming.” Was she this far along her life’s journey only to sink without a ripple.

Her children had left the nest, her husband was ill, and the writing she had been attempting was ordinary. She was “Carrying something bitter within me, completing the invisibility that befalls women over forty.”

Many women are aware of this issue and have found solutions to their invisibility, but Katja found a most unusual way. She decided to train as a chiropodist. In this role she would be pursuing a new career, helping people, and listening to their stories. After studying intensely, she found a position in a salon at the base of large and unlovely apartment block in Marzahn in East Berlin.

Katja is an excellent chiropodist. She carefully looks after her patients’ feet making sure the end massage is comforting and soothing. There are details given for the procedures that follow. The routine is as important to the elderly people as the conversation. Katja never forgets what her customers have said and listens with encouragement and concern as she trims unruly toenails and sandpapers away the dead skin around the feet.

She lists each of her clients, their interests and how they enjoy being treated. Herr Paulke would light up if he thought he had made Katja laugh, he was used to no one paying him any attention. Frau Blumeier manages herself and her wheelchair with great authority. She has a favourite phrase which was, “I was just going to say that!” Which causes great mirth.

This small book is full of life and warmth and care: a tribute to a lady who was floundering in her lake.

Fiction, General