Eight essays on literature language art Europe and life from one of Germany's most revered
living writers. After a visit to Putin's old postbox the reader is taken to Dresden and
Brixton Gdansk and Minsk diverted to birds bees stray cats and pet dogs confronted with
Stasi and KGB Proust and Jah Shaka puzzled by overcoats and anoraks Francis Bacon and
Vermeer and lost (then found) in service stations and memorial centres. Throughout Marcel
Beyer forges unexpected links and makes unpredictable leaps. I work from the margins partly
very literally as I build my sentences for instance when I start with the name of a colour
rather than a noun to explore how the sentence might be steered from there to a subject. In my
reading I am drawn to the outliers or as malicious claims would have it to the obscure.
Central books: that is those everyone can agree on have never much interested me. I am rarely
tempted to explore the centre of my world in writing and even if I did want to encroach upon a
centre I would have to choose a path from the outside. But outside too one advances to the
heart of things. Inspired by the great W. G. Sebald Beyer's playful literary investigations
wend through the high points and horrors of Europe's artistic history towards a profoundly
personal conclusion.
