review
‘I Want to Go Back in Time’ is a slim but profoundly evocative memoir that examines the unreliable, fragmentary nature of family memory. Hermann is particularly curious about her grandfather, who was a member of the SS and stationed in Radom, Poland during WWII. She writes about the longing for a complete narrative despite our forgetting and repressing and the role of the writer in the search for meaning.Â
The book is elegantly structured in three distinct parts, linked by Hermann’s own search for a narrative thread. It begins in Radom, where Hermann spends a month attempting to trace her grandfather’s history as a member of the SS. Guided only by a single photograph from 1941 and the fading, often reluctant memories of her octogenarian mother, Hermann finds herself at a standstill. Her mother grows increasingly annoyed by these inquiries into what was long an ‘open secret’, accusing her daughter of mining the past for art. Hermann captures the poignant solitude of the writer, literally putting old photographs under a magnifying glass, waiting for a story that never quite materialises.
The focus then shifts to Naples, where Hermann stays with her sister’s family. Here, the investigation into her grandfather’s difficult legacy is thwarted by the pleasantries of domestic life; difficult topics are avoided in front of the children, and the truth remains submerged beneath hikes and family meals. The final section, ‘Tidslomme’, recounts the bizarre, temporary disappearance of her husband’s parents, who vanished on a short trip only to reappear weeks later, having been away on an unexplained visit to Poland. This story is a blank space in the family history that remains empty to this day.
Hermann’s signature minimalist style has never been sharper than in this quiet masterpiece of the unsaid. Eschewing tidy resolutions, she instead invites the reader into the gaps of her family’s past, framing our hunger for a complete narrative as a universal longing. ‘I Want to Go Back in Time’ is a sophisticated, self-reflective journey through the 20th century’s longest shadows – a must-read for anyone who knows that the most powerful stories are the ones that remain unfinished.Â
Find out more: https://www.fischerverlage.de/verlag/rights/book/judith-hermann-ich-moechte-zurueckgehen-in-der-zeit-9783103977646
All recommendations from Spring 2026