There is no home any more. A home is for people who grew up in mountain villages, where all of the people know one another, where you even know the animals, and where you watch the sunset instead of going to the cinema. For all others, that is: for most people, the same question arises time and time again: Shall I stay or leave? Shall I stay seated in my boring life in Berlin, or shall I start the pursuit of happiness in Sri Lanka, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, or Tel Aviv? The characters in Sibylle Berg’s novel go on a journey. All of them are in search of happiness. Only what each of them needs to find this happiness is so very different.
Never before in her literary work Sibylle Berg has taken a look at such a great number and variety of human fates. Known as a master of the depiction of the abyss in the minds of affluent members of society in Central Europe, she now impresses with incisive observations of social realities in different places around the world. We encounter Peter, an old hippie and hotel owner, who almost gets drowned in a tsunami, we meet Miki, who ends up as a film industry soldier of fortune, or Parul from Bangladesh, a stonecutter who works all day just to make a living and keep her shanty in a slum. During the research for this great new novel, Sibylle Berg has travelled into many corners of the world.
