In the Forests of the Metropoles

In his new book, Karl-Markus Gauß tries out different genres and invents a new one in the process: In the Forests of the Metropoles is a travelogue on a grand scale that takes us all the way from Burgundy to Transylvania, and from a small Thuringian town to a Greek island. Absorbing, erudite, at once intimate and worldly – it is a wide-reaching and ambitious account, divided into thirteen stages, reporting from the streets of Bucharest, stopping off at the no-man’s land on the border between Slovenia and Croatia, and tracing the noises of Istanbul as well as the silence of an Italian military cemetery. An unprecedented cultural history of Europe, it is rich in unexpected connections and surprising relations. At the same time, it is also a coming-of-age novel in more ways than one: it shows how Europe came to perceive itself through the deeds, dreams and the wonderful defiance of many generations. And it traces the development of the author, whose personality is defined by the tireless quest for that face of the world that may appear alien, and yet is our own.