Eugen Ruge is a German writer and a major figure in contemporary German fiction whose work repeatedly brings together twentieth-century history, political systems and family memory. His international breakthrough came with the family novel In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts, which won the German Book Prize in 2011. In Pompeji oder Die fünf Reden des Jowna, questions of power, history and the fragility of individual lives come to the fore.