Days by the River

  • Sometimes you have to swim against the current to find yourself - a novel about old wounds and new chances
  • For readers of Ewald Arenz, Petra Pellini and Lisa Ridzén
  • English sample translation by Rachel Ward available soon
  • Topics: midlife transformations, climate activism, generational connection, nature conservation, trauma, rural resistance

On a hot summer’s day, a young man ends up at the ferrywoman Sara Harmsen’s house and begins to chip away at all the walls she has so carefully built. 

Sara is in her late forties, living an intentionally isolated life on a small farm along a crescent-shaped bend of a river known as the "Green Moon". She spends her days keeping a small flock of chickens and operating the local ferry link that connects the rural area to the outside world. Her only friend is her dog Luna. 

Her carefully guarded solitude is upended when Leon, a young climate activist, collapses on her ferry after fleeing a violent police dispersal of a nearby forest occupation. Sara begrudgingly takes in the young man in exchange for manual labor. As they work together shearing sheep and repairing roofs, they begin to form a delicate bond that allows them to open up and face their old wounds. When the two of them oppose a planned bridge that threatens Sara’s ferry, they find themselves facing hostility and attacks from the village. And then the river bursts its banks too …

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  • Publisher: Kiepenheuer&Witsch
  • Release: 09.07.2026
  • ISBN: 978-3-462-01367-2
  • 320 Pages
  • Author: Jochen Mariss
Buchcover von Days by the River: Roman
Jochen Mariss Days by the River
Portrait von Jochen Mariss
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Jochen Mariss

Jochen Mariss , born in 1955, is a freelance writer. Tage am Fluss (Days by the River) is his debut novel. He has previously published short stories and children’s books.