The Ballad of the Last Guest

A novel about a man who returns home, only to find that home is now unrecognizable, by the Nobel laureate Peter Handke. Gregor returns home from another continent. The landscape, formerly dotted with small villages, has been absorbed into the outskirts of a large city, both familiar and foreign at the same time. His father sits playing cards, waiting for him, but Gregor is surprised to find his sister holding an infant. He, the older brother, is to be the child’s godfather—though he also carries with him the secret of his younger brother’s death. In the end, Gregor is never quite able to stay put. He is drawn out into the world, into the streets and alleys of what is now a city, to the cinema, the soccer stadium, the forest, and above all the old fruit orchard, now overgrown and beyond saving. As he walks, the present and the past become intertwined—memories of childhood surface, and inner voices enter into dialogue. Revisiting many of the settings and themes of Peter Handke’s previous works, The Ballad of the Last Guest takes stock of the changes that have been wrought on the land—and on human beings —over the course of the twenty-first century.