We Would Have Told Each Other Everything

A Novel

by Judith Hermann

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Pub Date Jan 13 2026 | Archive Date Feb 13 2026

Farrar, Straus and Giroux | FSG Originals

General Fiction (Adult) | German Book Prize

Description

A wise and subtle work that explores the refractive power of memory, and what it means to exist in the lives of others–from one of the most highly regarded writers working in Germany today.

When Judith Hermann runs into her psychoanalyst in the middle of the night on Berlin's Kastanienallee, the meeting sparks an exploration of the moments and memories that have made a life: an intense friendship with another young mother; an unconventional childhood with long summers spent on the German coast; and the ties of familial trauma that echo through generations.

In three interconnected sections at once confessional and lyrical, We Would Have Told Each Other Everything explores how the life and work of the writer converge and depart from each other when memory is no longer reliable and dreams intrude on reality.

A Note From the Publisher

Judith Hermann was born in Berlin in 1970. She is the author of several novels and story collections, including Alice, which was short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; Where Love Begins; and Summerhouse, Later, which won the Kleist Prize. Her novel Daheim was a bestseller and won the Rheingau and the Bremen Literature Prizes. Her work has been translated into thirty-five languages, and a number of her short stories have been adapted for film. She lives and works in Berlin.

Judith Hermann was born in Berlin in 1970. She is the author of several novels and story collections, including Alice, which was short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; Where Love...

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A Note From the Publisher

Judith Hermann was born in Berlin in 1970. She is the author of several novels and story collections, including Alice, which was short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; Where Love Begins; and Summerhouse, Later, which won the Kleist Prize. Her novel Daheim was a bestseller and won the Rheingau and the Bremen Literature Prizes. Her work has been translated into thirty-five languages, and a number of her short stories have been adapted for film. She lives and works in Berlin.

Advance Praise

“Judith Hermann understands better than anyone that something unspoken must lie at the core of every story. We Would Have Told Each Other Everything is a precise meditation on the mysteries and risks of storytelling—and a haunting account of a life lived in close communion with ghosts and dreams, with chosen and given families. Just like in her stories, Hermann never draws too close to the shadowy center from which everything feeds.” —Dorothee Elmiger, author of Out of the Sugar Factory

“All my life’s defining concerns, as a writer and a woman, are here, and Judith Hermann conveys and examines them with generosity and honesty and insight. This book stimulated my mind and touched me to the core.” —Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Checkout 19

“[A] luminous dialogue of self and soul.” —Catherine Taylor, Financial Times