The Emigrants C Or

From the Publisher: Book One-introduces Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson, their 3 young children, and 11 others who make up a resolute party of Swedes fleeing the poverty, religious persecution, and social oppression of Smaland in 1850.

Originally published in 1991, this book covers an usually long time – from the 17th to the 20th Century – and considers the impact of internal migration and immigration (primarily in Britain) as well as emigration to North America, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Population movements are now recognized to be an integral part of structural change within society and this book brings together a variety of approaches. Drawing on the findings of historians, geographers and sociologists, the essays highlight areas of concern and illustrate some of the directions research on migration was taking in the early 1990s.

A masterwork of W. G. Sebald, now with a gorgeous new cover by the famed designer Peter Mendelsund The four long narratives in The Emigrants appear at first to be the straightforward biographies of four Germans in exile. Sebald reconstructs the lives of a painter, a doctor, an elementary-school teacher, and Great Uncle Ambrose. Following (literally) in their footsteps, the narrator retraces routes of exile which lead from Lithuania to London, from Munich to Manchester, from the South German provinces to Switzerland, France, New York, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Along with memories, documents, and diaries of the Holocaust, he collects photographs—the enigmatic snapshots which stud The Emigrants and bring to mind family photo albums. Sebald combines precise documentary with fictional motifs, and as he puts the question to realism, the four stories merge into one unfathomable requiem.