By Lucy Kenningham Fate and freedom are at loggerheads in this mesmerising novel depicting an abusive relationship that crumbles alongside the Berlin Wall, writes Lucy Kenningham Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck won the International Booker Prize in May 2024East Berlin, July 1986. Sheltering from a torrential downpour, Katharina (19) and Hans (53) meet and – to the sound of Chopin, Bach and Mozart and the mantra of Lenin – fall painfully in love. But their relationship, like the DDR (German Democratic Republic), will not last. Initially caught up in the headiness of sex, the emotional force of late-b…