Welcome, new dreams

With its compelling lucidity and masterful narrative control, Norbert Niemann's superb new novel confirms this author's ranking – focusing on the inhabitants of a village, he captures the essence of present-day social reality.

Asger Weidenfeldt, a successful young TV reporter from Berlin, lives solely for his work. One day it occurs to him that he may be missing out on real life. He takes a vacation and goes back to his home village, where his mother Clara, ageing diva of the New German Cinema, is living on her former glory. Asg bumps into his old school friend Wenzel, now a married civil servant and father-of-two. Was Asger mistaken all along? Would this have been a happier life? … And then there's the new generation with an entirely different set of dreams – Maya, for whom a future in the media seems more real than reality itself, or Mascha, the Russian housemaid. When Clara throws a big party to celebrate the return of her "prodigal son", there is inevitable conflict as the different generations, ambitions, and dreams meet in head-on collision.

Norbert Niemann's novel traces the emotions and realities of everyday life. »This author will go far«, Peter von Matt wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Here, after seven years, is the third novel by one of the most persuasive and provocative authors on the contemporary German literary scene.

"A novel of great substance." Arno Geiger