What do we have left when everything we knew disappears?

MITTAGSSTUNDE
(Midday Hour)
by Dörte Hansen
Penguin, October 2018

# 3 Bestseller of the Year 2018 in Fiction!

The clouds are lying low over the geest as Ingwer Feddersen, 49, returns to his home village. There is something he has to make amends for. Grandmother Ella is in the process of losing her mind; Grandfather Sönke is steadfastly holding his ground in the village pub. He has seen better days, just like the whole village. When did this decline begin? In the 1970s, when after the land reform first the hedges and then the birds disappeared? When the large farms grew and the small ones died away? When Ingwer went to university, walking out on the old man and his guest house? Dörte Hansen has written a warm-hearted story about the disappearance of a rural world, of loss, parting and of beginning anew.

Dörte Hansen, born in 1964, learned several languages such as Gaelic, Finnish and Basque and was awarded a PhD in linguistics. She then turned to journalism, spent several years working as an editor for NDR and is now an author for radio and print. Her debut novel “Altes Land” was a major bestseller and has been translated into numerous languages.

Rights sold to: Czech Republic (Host), the Netherlands (HarperCollins)