Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Netherlands (de Arbeiderspers)
»An essential chapter in the history of the Federal Republic, a swan song to the lost generation of the seventies that oscillates between melancholy and furore,« wrote Matthias Bischoff in his review of Ralf Rothmann’s 1991 debut novel in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Bull tells the story of Kai Carlsen, which takes from Berlin to Ruhr area, where the damage caused by mining is etched into the houses facades and where fathers work in the...
»An essential chapter in the history of the Federal Republic, a swan song to the lost generation of the seventies that oscillates between melancholy and furore,« wrote Matthias Bischoff in his review of Ralf Rothmann’s 1991 debut novel in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Bull tells the story of Kai Carlsen, which takes from Berlin to Ruhr area, where the damage caused by mining is etched into the houses facades and where fathers work in the pits. This is where the quiet rebel and dashing »red light casanova« trains to be a bricklayer – and discovers a life behind life. When Kai Carlsen finds work and board with Eckhart Eberwein, a former civil engineer and operator of the Blow up, a meeting place for the subculture, the dreamer makes audacious new friends in his search for inner freedom. But the shadow of a woman and her beautiful daughter settles over their carefree parties ... Eventually, Kai Carlsen becomes a nursing assistant. At the clinic where he works, he meets an art-loving Colombian and the mysterious nurse Marleen. And he learns to live with the ordinariness of death.
Bull is a tribute to youth. Restlessly and intensely, it shares the attitude to life of a generation through the coming-of-age story of a young man who becomes a narrator because he has understood an essential aspect of life: »Time, however lifetimes it would last, was too short. It is the longing of the deceased that tugs at us, their love is what makes us and things evanescent.«
Ralf Rothmann was born in Schleswig in 1953 and grew up in the Ruhr region. For his work, he has been awarded numerous prizes including the Heinrich-Böll-Preis 2005, the Max-Frisch-Preis 2006, the Kleist-Preis 2017, the Premio San Clemente 2018 (Spain) and most recently the Thomas-Mann-Preis 2023. His work Der Gott jenes Sommers received the Uwe-Johnson-Preis 2018 and the English translation of Im Frühling sterben was awarded the HWA Gold Crown for Historical Fiction (UK) 2018. Rothmann lives in Berlin.
Ralf Rothmann was born in Schleswig in 1953 and grew up in the Ruhr region. For his work, he has been awarded numerous prizes including the...
»I have always loved the rain – as long as I didn’t get wet. The world is more peaceful when it rains, I sit by the window quietly and listen as the downpour makes the foliage of the lime tree, the letterboxes and the empty bottles behind the bistro sing. I’d like to write as fluidly as that. The entire rue Delambre is expressed brilliantly, up to the farthest...
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»Fear is a man’s best friend« is the motto of Hotel of Insomniacs, Ralf Rothmann’s new volume of stories, and indeed it is often fear that helps his characters overcome difficulties. The...
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A child in the war: at the start of 1945, twelve-year-old Luisa Norff has to flee to the countryside with her mother and her older sister as the bombardment of Kiel has begun. The estate owned by...
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