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      • Fiction
        March 2021

        Restlöcher (Open Pits)

        Roman

        by Lena Müller

        “You can't hold onto love. Just wait until it comes back.” Sando loves the Fox. The Fox, among all people. This young man with the unsettling smile who he met at a demo and who he cannot really get a hold of. But Sando has learned that you can't hold onto love, you have to wait until it comes back. He has learned that from his mother, who decided twenty years ago to leave her social background and to pursue her own goals, to not always be there for others: “The possibility of disappearance is always there. Because we are not just the ones the others want us to be”, she said. And now his sister Mili calls Sando because their mother has left their father – again. Without leaving a note. Sando agrees to embark with Mimi on the search, hoping to escape his lovesickness on the way. Lena Müller‘s first novel is about love and freedom, obligations and longing – and about what is left over.

      • Fiction
        March 2021

        Krumholz

        Roman

        by Flavio Steimann

        A masterful novel about a girl and her murderer – based on a true story from Switzerland just before the First World War. In May 1914, a young woman was found murdered in a wood near Krumbach, in Switzerland. The murderer, a homeless man living in the woods, was the last person executed by the guillotine in the canton of Lucerne. Inspired by this true case, Flavio Steimann tells the story of Agatha and Zenz: Her mother died while giving birth to Agatha. Her father, grief-stricken, sets his broken-down farm on fire some years later and hangs himself, but only after bringing the deaf child to a safe place in the woods. Agatha‘s world is a silent one, making her an even more careful observer. She grows up in an institution “for the poor and the lunatic”, surrounded by mean nuns, where she learns embroidery and sewing and later finds work in a cloth factory. Her first blooming is put to an end abruptly as Agatha is diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to the countryside for a cure. Every day she goes into the forest with her embroidery frame – until one day, she doesn‘t come back. Zenz also comes from the poorest of backgrounds. Beaten and neglected, he makes a living by lying and stealing from early age. A better life seems within reach as he is taken to artistic circles Paris by a painter friend. But finally he has to turn back to Switzerland, where he lives in the woods, homeless. One day, he sees Agatha there … In his artfully composed novel, Flavio Steimann intertwines the fate of two people who could not escape their destiny.

      • Fiction
        January 2023

        Was ihr nicht seht (What You Don't See)

        by Magdalena Saiger

        This poetic and philosophical debut is the story about an estrangement and about two unequal men.»What you don‘t see« accompanies an anonymous narrator who is leaving out of the blue, into the open.The existence of the text itself is a paradox, addressing an audience that was never supposed to exist. Writtenin Nowhere, an untraceable old coal mining area close to the highway. This is where the narrator finds anabandoned storage hall. It seems perfect for his plan to build a paper labyrinth that nobody should ever layeyes on. He is driven by anger and fed up with the art industry, he aims for something bigger: a work ofenormous dimensions, so big that it seems doomed to fail. But he is taking up the challenge with a fierceenthusiasm and the knowledge that perfection can only grow and exist in complete futility. Eventually hemeets his counter figure who he calls Giacometti. Giacometti is a rugged old man from the village that hadto give way for the coal mining. He shows resistance against the course of things, keeping the village awakeby telling its story while staring into the emptiness of the mine. The two men keep a close watch, searchingfor each other, but some distance always remains. Both dwell in and around the mine, becoming allies inthe protection of the place against its discovery by outsiders. But the uncertainty if the presence of one willbecome too much for the other stays. This book is the literary exploration of the question how far one goes.

      • Fiction
        September 2021

        Halder

        Kriminalroman

        by Max Bronski

        A gripping political thriller about cop culture and a security apparatus that is blind to right-wing criminality, up to the highest ranks. Kurt Halder, the President of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is on his way from Cologne to Munich to attend a meeting of the special task force »Nordring«. Nordring is an industrial area in Munich, where a police car was set on fire and a detective was killed. The police suspect a militant left-wing radical network, therefore Halder’s Office intervenes in the investigation. But right-wing extremist circles are also involved, the murdered man belonged to a subversive police group that sent threatening letters to exponents of the lefty scene. Halder develops a personal interest in the case; he targets two former sympathizers of the Rote Armee Fraktion, who give him the impression that they want to resume their anti-capitalist and anti-fascist struggle. In fighting the RAF remnants, Halder sees himself in the tradition of his great predecessors who had to pay with their lives for their struggle against these terrorists. And Halder has another motif: A former schoolmate has contacted and invited him to visit her, which he can combine with his business trip. A dream from his youth seems to come true. Layer by layer, Max Bronski dissects the worldview and inner workings of a right-wing ideologist at the highest level of state.

      • Fiction
        September 2021

        Die Musik auf den Dächern (The Music On The Roofs)

        Erzählungen

        by Selim Özdogan

        Tender and melancholic, sometimes cool, sometimes fierce: Selim Özdogan strikes the tone of our times. All of a sudden, Latifa smells of freshly roasted coffee beans and just can’t get it off her skin. A young Indian philologist cracks the IT-code to the digital legacy of a famous and much celebrated author while being observed by a rabbit inside the author’s son’s head. Aliens plant sunflowers into rubber boots which are arranged to look like a swastika. The Rat-Catcher of Hamelin finally gets to tell the tale from his point of view. Hillalum meets the God-machine. Şeyda is diagnosed with migration background but turns out to handle her diagnosis in a completely different way than expected. Virtuously juggling with various narrative roles, Selim Özdogan displays his large scope of style. His often melancholic view finds beauty in everyday details. He skilfully goes against the odds and agains the expected. His small allusions to mafia movies, pop music and beat-literature make his prose the most pleasurable read.

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