Elina Penner, 'Nightberries" (CMU Press, 2026)

About this episode

Hollay Ghadery interviews Elina Penner about her translated novel 'Nightberries' and its themes of identity and memory within a German Mennonite family.

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Elina Penner about her translated novel, Nightberries (CMU Press, 2026, translated by Bradley Schmidt). Where is your husband?Nelli doesn’t seem to be in crisis—or does she? The quiet youngest daughter in a noisy, tangled German Mennonite family who fled from Russia in the 1990s, does she even know where she belongs? Marriage, loyalty, faith, family: memory can be deceiving. Or are memories like nightberries? Nightberries taste good, with sugar, when ripe. But sometimes nightberries are dangerous, and you need to understand when that transformation happens. A tense situation boils over in this darkly entertaining psychological novel of contemporary German life. Elina Penner was born in 1987 as a Mennonite German in the former Soviet Union and moved to Germany in 1991. Plautdietsch is her mother tongue. After years in Berlin and the US, she lives with her family in East Westphalia and is a successful personal essayist and blogger. Nachtbeeren was her debut novel, in 2022. In 2025, her second novel, Die Unbußfertigen, will be published in Germany. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by…

People in this episode

Host: Hollay Ghadery

Guest: Elina Penner

Topics covered

• translated novel
• psychological novel
• German Mennonite family
• identity
• memory
• contemporary literature

Keywords

• Elina Penner
• Nightberries
• translated literature
• psychological novel
• German Mennonite
• identity
• memory

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CMU Press

Books & works: Nightberries, Nachtbeeren, Die Unbußfertigen

Places: Germany, Russia

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