After his bestseller Leyla, Feridun Zaimoglu turns to contemporary Germany as the setting for his new novel Liebesbrand. The story begins almost at its end: Richard, a young stockbroker who quit his job just in time before the stock market crashed, nearly loses his life in a bus accident in Turkey. But he is rescued and suddenly finds himself confronted with an angelic apparition. A beautiful young woman tends to his wounds but then disappears in a car with a German number plate. At this moment, the narrator falls passionately in love. Covered in wounds and with a picture of a ring with a blue enamel cameo etched on his memory and a hairclip in his suitcase, he returns to Germany. There, he sets out in search of the woman of his dreams. This search takes him to Nienburg an der Weser, and on to Prague and Vienna. En route, he is loved and rejected, assaulted and hated, enlightened and disappointed. But he refuses to give up hope that he will eventually find what he is looking for.
Feridun Zaimoglu succeeds in telling a modern-day love story in the tradition of German romanticism. The narrator is looking not for perfection but for fulfilment or even salvation – and in the process constantly finds himself up against new problems and challenges. Luckily, friend and helper Gabriel is there to support him and put him on the right track in time. Unafraid of pathos and subtle irony, Zaimoglu’s novel is an invocation of love – fast-paced, funny and touching.
