Café of the Invisibles
by Judith Kuckart
Description
A novel about the power of telling and listening
The Worst Catastrophes Take on a Meaning when They Are Told
Seven very different people sit at the phones of the telephone counselling service. Rieke is studying theology and prepares for pastoral care in her night shifts. Wanda is a collection manager in a GDR museum and the only one who suspects early on that the majority of the callers will be poor, elderly and East German. No one but her is so well prepared for the yesterday that won't stop talking in the today. Not even Matthias, although he knows how present the past can be: His father let himself roll in front of a train on a Saturday afternoon long ago. For Matthias, life since then has been a puzzling task whose solution he hopes to find through the beautiful Emilia. The retired radio editor Niedlich, unhappy Marianne and the 80-year-old narrator von Schrey complete the group.
All seven learn that listening, more than giving advice, can soothe the hopelessness of a sleepless night. They learn that their own life experience also becomes more worldly in the process. The conversations with a paedophile fleeing from his addiction, with a woman threatened with homelessness and many who can no longer sleep or feel tell of worlds they do not know but share in listening.
The biographies of the listeners touch those of the invisible, who hardly anyone sees in a success-oriented society, not even on the street. A filigree web emerges that fishes lives as unspectacular as they are tragic out of the darkness of untold stories. Every situation has a story that you have to know in order to understand the whys and wherefores. Every moment has its biography, and every biography its riddles.
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Rights Information
Rights to previous titles sold to: Seagull Books (English World)
Reviews
“Judith Kuckart has written a metaphysical novel. [...] The experienced writer […] has subtly linked the sublime with the everyday.”
Hubert Winkels, DIE ZEIT
“Judith Kuckart is a master at weaving truths beneath the surface and telling of weak moments and of weak people with great warmth.”
DER SPIEGEL
“Judith Kuckart has that rare gift of being able to capture complex truths in a stunningly simple way. Her descriptions of the night shifts are delightfully languorous, interspersed with moments of light and clarity, making the night seem more real than the day. The German cultural setting, and Berlin specifically, are important in the book’s appeal; at the same time, the depiction of loneliness is universal, and the settings are domestic and relatable.”
NEW BOOKS IN GERMAN Autumn 2022
Author Biography
Judith Kuckart, born in 1959, lives as an author and director in Berlin. She published the novel 'Lenas Liebe' (2002), the short story collection 'Die Autorenwitwe' (2003), the new edition of her novel 'Der Bibliothekar' (2004) as well as the novels 'Kaiserstraße' (2006), 'Die Verdächtige' (2008), 'Wünsche' (2013), 'Dass man durch Belgien muss auf dem Weg zum Glück' (2015) and 'Kein Sturm, nur Wetter' (2019) with DuMont. Judith Kuckart has been awarded numerous literary prizes and including the Annette-von-Droste-Hülshoff-Preis (2012).
DuMont Buchverlag GmbH & Co.KG
DuMont Buchverlag publish international and German literary and upmarket commercial fiction, crime fiction, general non-fiction, biographies and cultural history as well as art, design, living and cookery.
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher DuMont Buchverlag
- Publication Date February 2022
- Orginal LanguageGerman
- ISBN/Identifier 9783832181567 / 3832181567
- Publication Country or regionGermany
- FormatHardback
- Primary Price 23 EUR
- Pages208
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Original Language TitleCafé der Unsichtbaren
- Original Language AuthorsGerman
- Copyright Year2022
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