Where We’re Going

  • #2 SWR Bestenliste May 2019
  • Theodor Fontane Prize 2019
  • Shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature 2020

Some friendships last longer than countries – a touching novel about friendship, loyalty and belonging

Almut and Rosa, two girls in 1940s Bohemia, are best friends. When Almut’s father dies unexpectedly and her mother commits suicide, Rosa’s mother, a German communist and anti-fascist, who, like all Germans after the war, is forced to leave Czechoslovakia, takes both girls with her to East Germany. They share experiences of loss and uprooting, but also a growing connection to the newly formed nation. Almut and Rosa become teachers and move to Berlin. But, at 30, Rosa decides to start all over yet again: Just a few months before the wall goes up, she hops on a subway to West Berlin with nothing but her handbag. Almut’s world falls apart; she can no longer tell what’s up and what’s down, since she herself is in search of something that remains. Half a century later, Almut’s daughter Elli has a best friend of her own, the dramatist Kristine. And, ultimately, it is she who takes care of Almut in her old age, when Elli gets a job at the theatre in Basel.

Experiences and memories settle like sediment. Life paths intertwine, between families and genera-tions. A book about leaving, arriving or remaining – and about the moment you recognize what really matters.

Contact Foreign Rights
Rights sold to

Macedonia: under negotiation

  • Publisher: Galiani-Berlin
  • Release: 14.02.2019
  • 224 pages
  • ISBN: 978-3-86971-186-7
Jan Konitzki

Peggy Mädler

Peggy Mädler was born in Dresden in 1976, studied theatre, education and cultural sciences in Berlin and earned a doctorate in cultural sciences in 2008. She works as a freelance dramatist and author and is a co-founder of the artists’ group Labor für kontrafaktisches Denken (Laboratory for Counterfactual Thinking). From 2007 to 2009, she was a member of the founding board of LAFT Berlin, and she was involved in the theater collective She She Pop. Galiani Berlin published her first novel, Legende vom Glück des Menschen (“Legend of Man‘s Happiness”), in 2011.

Further Titles

All Books