A daughter disappears. A father in despair sets off for a dangerous journey to Syria.
DER GROSSE WUNSCH
(What You Wish For)
by Sherko Fatah
Luchterhand Literaturverlag/PRH Germany, August 2023
A daughter has disappeared. She has travelled to Syria to marry a jihadist she met online. Her father Murad blames himself. If he had only told Naima more about his old homeland, which he has left behind mentally, as well as physically; if only he had paid more attention to her feelings of alienation – perhaps then she wouldn’t have gone to a strange country in the name of religion. Murad knows he must find Naima. He contacts human traffickers and travels to the Kurdish territory on the Turkish-Syrian border, where he comes face to face with his past. When the traffickers play him an audio diary recorded by a woman in Raqqa – probably Naima – Murad sets out on a perilous journey into ISIS territory…
Sensitive and insightful, this is a heartbreaking story set against the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East.
Sherko Fatah was born in 1964 as the son of an Iraqi Kurd and a German mother. He grew up in East Germany and, in 1975, moved to West Berlin with his family via Vienna. He studied philosophy and history of art. Fatah has received numerous awards for his narrative work, most recently the Großer Kunstpreis Berlin of the Akademie der Künste, the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize 2015, as well as the Aspekte-Literaturpreis for Borderland. His novels have been translated into several languages.
It is August 1943. Fourteen-year-old Massimo is an orphan fleeing south to Naples from Rome after his parents are killed in an American bombing raid. After he is attacked by thugs at the base of the Benedictine abbey of Montecasino, a man who calls himself Pietro Houdini (“Master Artist and confident of the Vatican!”) brings him inside. Unfortunately, the abbey sits on the German’s Gustav Line, and the allies are coming north. In the months to follow, Massimo, Pietro Houdini, the mysterious “black angel” named Ada, the cafe owner and murderer Bella Bocci, the wounded but chipper German soldier Harald, and the lovers Dino and Lucia (on their wounded mule named Ferrari) will lie, cheat, steal, fight, kill, and sin their way through the front line of the World War II to survive, all while smuggling three Titian Renaissance paintings they stole from the Nazis who were stealing them from the monks.
Javier Perez is a hustler from a family of hustlers. He learns from an early age how to play the game to his own advantage, how his background—murdered drug-dealer dad, single cash-strapped mom, best friend serving time for gang activity—becomes a key to doors he didn’t even know existed. This kind of story, molded in the right way, is just what college admissions committees are looking for, and a full academic scholarship to a prestigious university brings Javi one step closer to his dream of becoming a famous writer. As a college student, Javi embellishes his life story until there’s not even a kernel of truth left. The only real connection to his past is the occasional letter he trades with his childhood best friend, Gio, who doesn’t seem to care about Javi’s newfound awareness of white privilege or the school-to-prison pipeline. Soon after graduating, a viral essay transforms Javi from a writer on the rise to a journalist at a legendary magazine where the editors applaud his “unique perspective.” But Gio more than anyone knows who Javi really is, and sees through his game. Once he’s released from prison and Javi offers to cut him in on the deal, will he play along with Javi’s charade, or will it all come crumbling down? A sendup of virtue signaling and tear-jerking trauma plots, Victim asks what real diversity looks like and how far one man is willing to go to make his story hit the right notes.