REVIEW: What’s New in Translation: May 2025, Asymptote

By Regan Mies, Aysmptote

On the Havel River, near Berlin, a small ship is hosting an academic conference in the memory of Paul Heudeber, the mathematician and author of The Buchenwald Conjectures—a renowned work of mathematical theory, poetry, and commentary on life in the titular concentration camp. In attendance are his daughter, the math historian Irina Heudeber; her mother and Paul’s partner Maja, a once-prominent socialist activist; and a cast of graduate students and academics at the top of their fields…

Much of The Deserters’ allure is its language—in a virtuosic translation by Charlotte Mandell—but equally compelling is the challenge the novel presents; one can’t help oneself from trying to decipher the relationship between the two plotlines, wondering what revelation from one story shines light on the other…

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