« A groundbreaking work in German literature. » Ocean Vuong
WO AUCH IMMER IHR SEID
(Wherever You Are)
by Khuê Pham
btb/PRH Germany, September 2021
She is 30 years old and her name is Kieu, like the girl in the most famous work of Vietnamese literature. But she prefers to go by « Kim » because it’s easier in Berlin. In 1968, her parents had come to Germany from Saigon. She often wished for a family that didn’t have to become German first, but simply was. The loss of her Vietnamese roots has never bothered her. On the contrary. Until she receives a message. On Facebook. From her uncle. Who has been living in California since he fled.
The whole family is supposed to meet for the reading of Kieu’s grandmother’s will. Kieu does not know these people. To her, the uncles and aunts are as unreal as the spirits of departed ancestors for whom her parents light a few incense sticks on Vietnamese New Year. It becomes a journey full of revelations – about her family, her origins and about herself.
Khuê Pham is one of the most important voices of the new generation of German-Vietnamese. She was born in Berlin in 1982 and studied in London at Goldsmiths College and the London School of Economics. After training at the Henri Nannen School of Journalism, she started as an editor at Die Zeit in 2009. Her stories often tell of how the lives of individuals are shaped by major political issues; she has won several awards for her journalistic work. In 2012, she published « Wir neuen Deutschen » (Rowohlt) with Alice Bota and Özlem Topçu, which is about immigrant children and their place in Germany. WO AUCH IMMER IHR SEID is Khuê Pham’s narrative debut – a literary approach to her own family, whose moving life journey she traces over five decades.
We don’t choose the times we live in nor the times that shape us. Neither did Lud and Alma. Lud, who was born in 1899, and his brother Wilhelm revere Bach and Hölderlin, and share the same unattainable ideals. Wilhelm, who joins the Nazi party early on, measures others according to its standards; Lud measures himself by them, which torments him for the rest of his life. Alma lost her parents when she was a child, and her godfather Lud – who is only a few years older than her – and his housekeeper become a kind of new family for her.
Twelve-year-old Henrietta, whom everyone calls Henry, lives in Berlin’s Wilmersdorf district and is longing for adventure. When her overprotective mother leaves her brand-new BMW on the street with her daughter asleep on the back seat, a young man gets into the unlocked car and drives off. He was only going to drive it round the block, but when Henry wakes up she convinces him to drive on. Sven, his girlfriend Nadja and Henry take off on a road trip, and the exuberant, taboo-breaking trio become a close-knit team as they take a journey that will change their lives for ever. 
Sander has been on the run ever since 1572, when he saw his father murdered at the hands of the Spanish invaders in Flanders. He meets a master who teaches him how to paint flowers, while his brother Hugo, who hasn’t spoken a word since their parents’ death, mixes the paints for him. But Hugo is as unreliable and quick to anger as he is gentle, and when he commits a violent crime, he and Sander have to flee. They find refuge in an artist’s studio in Rome, witness the Pope’s dissipation, are caught up in the intrigues proliferating in the Neapolitan cardinal’s palace, and – both in their own special way – experience the joy of forbidden love. In the course of their adventures, Sander repeatedly finds a way out of seemingly hopeless situations … 
John Devereaux, an SAS Warrant Officer, is seconded to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and handed a mission that will test him to his very core – both professionally and personally. The operationally deniable mission: infiltrate into Cambodia via parachute in the dead of night and assassinate two high-value targets, alone, and with two dozen enemy soldiers in his way. From the relentless jungles of Cambodia to the chaotic civilian-filled streets of Sydney and Bangkok, to the secretive dens of Moscow and the extravagant French Riviera, explosive SAS and ASIS action uncovers a shadowy and powerful organisation that brings us face to face with the Russian Mafia, and an assassin getting intimate. Unbeknown to Devereaux, the Director-General of the Secret Intelligence Service, Magnus Webb, is testing him for a far more important role – to head an off-the-books clandestine cell buried deep inside this secret organisation and known only as MANTRA-6. Devereaux’s mission has only just begun …