Go, Went, Gone

Go, Went, Gone, is a 2015 fiction novel by German writer Jenny Erpenbeck. It tells the story of a recently retired professor of German philology named Richard and his relationship to a group of African refugees as he attempts to help them find residences in Berlin. Most of the men arrive in Europe via boat before making their way to Berlin, where Richard first encounters them as they occupy a town square called Alexanderplatz.

When the novel begins, Richard’s wife has been dead for several years and he has just left the university. He has more time to himself than ever before and is unsure of how to use it. His garden and his books receive most of his attention as he adjusts to the new stage of his life. Richard lives near a lake and had planned on boating on it frequently, but a man drowned months before the novel’s beginning and the thought of the man’s corpse—which has still not been found—unsettles him to the point where he does not go onto the lake. He frequently imagines the man on the lake’s bottom, trapped in limbo.

One evening, Richard sees a group of African men on the news.