The Quietus
, February 27th, 2021 09:13
Patrick Wright, author of the new book, The Sea View Has Me Again: Uwe Johnson in Sheerness, talks to Simon Matthews about the moral utopia in the Thames Estuary
Brent geese over Shellness and nudist beach. All pictures courtesy Patrick Wright
We live in interesting times. Who would have thought that the odyssey of legendary East Germany writer Uwe Johnson, from the Baltic to Sheerness forty-five years ago, would have resonance today in a political and social landscape scarred by Brexit? A legendary figure in European literature, Johnson chose to settle in a cheerful working-class town with a steel works and port, that echoed in many ways the GDR he left, and had views across the Thames Estuary not unlike the Baltic seascapes of his native Pomerania.