The journalist, writer and fontane expert Gisela Heller invites readers with her memories on a journey through her long and eventful life. The author describes her not always easy path from her escape from her Silesian homeland and her professional beginnings in the early GDR, through her journalistic work for radio and television, to her closer involvement with a famous colleague who was to become her main work content and pillar of her life, Theodor Fontane. No writer is as close to me as Theodor Fontane, confesses the author and discovers, the more and the more intensively she deals with him, many parallels in her two life arcs. I did not choose him; he has grown into me over time.

The book also offers exciting insights from the world of media and culture in the GDR, from the time of the reunification and the post-reunification period to the present, and presents a series of portraits of politicians, journalists and artist colleagues. At the same time, the extensive text does not omit family joys and difficulties and shows how the author repeatedly succeeded and continues to succeed in overcoming sometimes serious illnesses, crises and conflicts and in regaining a positive attitude to life.

The touching autobiography concludes with the words: "The time of great, unfulfillable wishes is over; only one remained: May a pensive smile transfigure the face of those who think of me Cest ça

The almost 700-page memoirs of journalist, writer and font expert Gisela Heller were published to mark the 91st birthday of the author