You’re Not Going to Die

Helene Wesendahl has no idea what has happened: she wakes up in hospital, has no control over her body, is unable to speak and has lost her memory. Through her eyes, we see the hospital ward, the other patients, the nursing staff and Helene’s own body, which has suddenly taken on a life of its own. And we experience her laborious rehabilitation, the reactions of her family, her husband’s selfless commitment – and the fragmentary return of her memory.

What comes back to her confronts Helene with a life in which she barely recognises herself and which calls into question much of what now seems so normal. She discovers inconsistencies in her biography, suppressed passions and commitments born out of necessity. When she realises her affections had begun to wander and that she was planning to leave the man who is now caring for her with such devotion, Helene’s world starts to fall apart.

Kathrin Schmidt enables the reader to feel what it’s like to lose one’s sense of orientation and ability to speak after a stroke, and she describes a road to recovery that takes two directions, backwards and forwards. This is a coming-of-age novel of a very unique kind: the reader is riveted by its inner dynamism and fascinated by the wholeheartedness with which the protagonist confronts both her past and present.