Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl

Jahrestage 1-4: Aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl (volumes 1-2 translated into English as Anniversaries - from the Life of Gesine Cresspahl) is a tetralogy of novels by Uwe Johnson begun in 1970, further volumes 1971, 1973, and completed in 1983.^[1] Told in the form of diary entries by a German single mother in Manhattan, recording childhood in 1930s rural Eastern Germany at the time of the rise of Nazism, through World War II, the Soviet occupation zone, establishment of the GDR, and beginning of the Cold War, followed by her exile to New York. The first volume covers her story till a return to Prague, unaware that Soviet tanks have occupied the city and put down the Prague Spring.^[2][3]

References

1. Graham Bartram The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel 2004 p.121 0521483921 "Uwe Johnson, Anniversaries One cannot conclude a discussion of the city in the twentieth-century German novel without mention of Manhattan, and Uwe Johnson's tetralogy may be considered representative of postwar visions of the city."
2. D. G. Bond German History and German Identity: Uwe Johnson's Jahrestage 9051834594 1993 "It is the former in which I am interested in this chapter, as they are revealed in the fictional story of Gesine Cresspahl. ... This turning point - crisis is too strong a word - leads to her decision to go to Prague in order to work for the Czech attempts ..."
3. Ansgar Nünning, Kai Marcel Sicks Turning Points: Concepts and Narratives of Change in Literature 2012 3110297108 "(Anniversaries - From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl) was published in four volumes: the first appeared in 1970, the second in 1971, the third in 1973 ... to Prague, still unaware that Soviet tanks have occupied the city and put down the so-called Prague Spring."