Benedict Wells was born in 1984 in Munich. At the age of six, he started his journey through three Bavarian boarding schools. Upon graduating, he moved to Berlin, where he dedicated his time to writing. In 2016 he won the European Prize for Literature for his third novel, The End of Loneliness, which remained on the German bestseller list for over a year. After years of living in Barcelona, Wells has recently returned to Berlin.
“The trajectory of a long life, from childhood, through the adult
disappointments, through parenthood: this is what novels do best.
Our fate is everything we become; yet what happens to Jules and
Alva, in the hands of Benedict Wells, is dazzling
storytelling... The End of Loneliness is both affecting
and accomplished — and eternal.”—John Irving, author of The
World According to Garp, The Cider House
Rules, and Avenue of Mysteries
“Wells has constructed a probing study of self-creation and
forgiveness.”—The Boston Globe
“A life-affirming work.”—Vogue
“This beautiful book—compact yet flowing, lovingly translated by
Charlotte Collins, understated yet passionate—brings German author
Benedict Wells, only 35, front and center among world writers. It’s
both a family story and the tale of a man in search of the self he
is afraid to own. When you reach the last words and set the book
reluctantly down (you don’t want to leave the world it has woven),
you have suffered and lost again and again, and you are smiling. In
the most adult, complex, worldly sense, you’re experiencing that
rarest of feats, a happy ending.”—Philadelphia Inquirer
“Superbly crafted. . . . The End of Loneliness is a
character-driven exploration of love, loss and fate in an
indifferent universe.”—Shelf Awareness, starred review
“Like John Boyne, Wally Lamb or John Irving, Benedict Wells has
conjured a fictional world –at once epic and intimate, full of
uncanny occurrences, inescapable fates, love lost and found and
lost again— that quickly becomes more vivid to the reader than the
real world that exists beyond its covers. Even a great book might
not actually put an end to loneliness, but I can’t imagine a better
salve for solitude than a novel like this, a book with the empathy,
bravery, and vision to venture straight into the turbulent, vivid,
interior landscapes of memory in order to reveal to us our own
innermost selves.”—Stefan Merrill Block, author of Oliver Loving
and The Story of Forgetting
“Touching and timeless, [The End of Loneliness] is expertly and
evocatively rendered, in prose both beautiful and sparse enough to
cut clearly to the question at the novel’s heart: how one copes
with loss that isn’t—or doesn’t have to be—permanent.”—Publishers
Weekly
“A love story and a life story, this rich and well-translated
domestic drama acknowledges that some bonds are truly immutable in
the face of, or perhaps because of, tragedy and that our memories
and the stories we make of them, though they may change, are as
real as anything.”—Booklist, starred review
“A bittersweet, intricately plotted family saga. . . . A tender,
affecting novel, one that packs a lot into a slender frame.”—Kirkus
Reviews
“A tear-jerker . . . it is impossible to look away from it, the
unravelling, reforming lives of its characters.”—The Guardian
“Original and captivating, it's high time this German author had
more work translated in to English...[The End of Loneliness]'s
quiet charm in straightforward prose belies its sharp insight into
the human condition.”—Stylist Magazine
“This novel has been rightfully described as something of a
masterpiece. One thing is for sure — it is not easily
forgotten. Heartfelt and enriching.”—Sunday Post
“With a surprising maturity . . . Benedict Wells has found a voice
to describe, neither cruelly nor over-sensitively, human fragility,
failure and ageing.”—Le Monde
“The writing is as luminous as the subject is dark.”—Elle,
Paris
“Sophisticated . . . [Jules'] projection into kinder realities
offers the novel's most literary and most immediate, emotive
pleasures.”—The Irish Times
“A superbly insightful story.”—BookRiot
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