Blackbird

English sample translation by Ruth Martin available
SPIEGEL Bestseller (best placement #3)
Recommended for translation by Litrix (translation funding into Greek): https://www.litrix.de/el/buecher.cfm?publicationId=3364

Fifteen-year-old Morten, known as Motte, gets a call – and afterwards nothing in his life is ever the same again. Suddenly, his best friend Bogi is very sick. But that’s just one of the heart-shattering explosions that happen to Motte that year, turning his life upside-down. Soon afterwards Jacqueline rides past him on a roadster and the next shockwave runs its course.

Between these two extremes – the possibility of death and the possibility of love – events come to a head increasingly, get out of hand and leave Motte face-to-face with unfamiliar, painful challenges. But, at the right moment, the right people are by Motte’s side, doing just the right thing. And he himself faces things bravely head-on, with a keen eye and dry sense of humor.

“What’s difficult about coming-of-age stories is writing about the world of young people with the mind of an adult, which is so completely separate from it. In this case it’s a 1970s youth, but being young is always the same: so painful, so incomprehensible and so delightful, because you experience everything for the fist time. ‘Blackbird’ is a wonderful novel.” – Eva Menasse