AUSTERLITZ

The events in Austerlitz span from 1939 to the end of the century. The action takes place in Antwerp, Wales, Oxford, London, Paris, Prague, Terezin, and Marienbad. The historical events are over when the story begins. Sebald describes casual encounters between the narrator and Austerlitz, a lone traveler, in European cities during the last three decades of the 20th century. Before becoming an adult, Austerlitz didn’t know what his real name and background were, nor did he know his real parents. As a five-year-old boy he was sent by his mother on a kindertransport from Prague to London just before her deportation to the Terezin concentration camp. His father went missing and Austerlitz was adopted and raised in Wales under a different name. He graduated from Oxford, then settled in London where he researched European architecture. Austerlitz remembered nothing from his early childhood until one day at the Liverpool Street station, where his kindertransport train had once brought him, he had a sudden flashback. He then embarked on a search for his childhood home and his parents. However, his return to Prague only reinforced Austerlitz’s sense of exclusion, and only the search for his parents gave meaning to his life…