A glittering novel about two friends who dare to do things differently.

WILDE MANÖVER
(Wild Maneuvers)
by Judith Keller
Luchterhand Verlag/PRH Germany, September 2023

Big changes happen when no one’s looking: this is Keller’s fearless and irresistibly original story about breaking boundaries and an imaginative revolution – a fierce yet tender novel about two women determined to start something new. But how?

Something happened on that warm summer’s night, in the shopping centre car park. A van was pilfered – was it to do with drugs? Vera and Peli are suspected of being involved, but when the police interview them the two young women don’t shed any light on the mystery. On the contrary: there’s a mermaid in a pool, bicycles arranged in a circle on the train tracks, and an abducted horse – it seems that Vera and Peli have committed a whole series of crimes, one more improbable than the next. And so begins an adventurous search for answers in a city at night-time, as well as a quirky examination of our vanishing present.

Judith Keller, born in Switzerland in 1985, studied creative writing in Leipzig and Biel, and qualified as a German language teacher in Berlin and Bogotá. She has also been an editor at the literary journal Edit. She has won honorary awards from the city and canton of Zurich for her story collection « Die Fragwürdigen » (« The Questionable Ones »).

« I have rarely read anything this refreshing, bold and funny. » – Saša Stanišić