A gripping novel about a young woman’s search for the truth behind her mother’s death that leads her deep into the sinister circles of right-wing nationalists.
KAISERWALD
The Kaiserwald Duology, Book 1
by Anja Jonuleit
Penguin, February 2024
‘Your mother has disappeared.’ That’s all he said, while a series of emotions crossed his face: disbelief, shock, and finally that fear. That’s what I remember most: the fear, which now haunted the world like a genie released from its bottle. St John’s Eve, 1997: 15-year-old Alise is found unconscious on the shores of Lake Kisezers in Riga. Easter 1998: Rebecca Maywald, a teacher at the German School in Riga, disappears without a trace. She leaves behind an 8-year-old daughter, who is convinced she’ll find her mother again some day. The years that follow are years of uncertainty – and then an anonymous letter changes everything. Berlin, 2023: Ex-mountain trooper Mathilda intentionally crashes her car in order to meet Falk von Prokhoff, scion of a distinguished diplomatic family. Mathilda desperately wants to break into their inner circle – but her motives are as yet unclear. Little does she suspect that she’ll end up falling in love with Falk… and so begins a dangerous game of false identities, unsolved crimes and nefarious far-right political schemes… For readers of Donna Tartt, Alena Schröder and Trude Teige.
Anja Jonuleit, born in 1965, grew up on Lake Constance and spent a few years working for the German Embassy in Rome. After a secondment at the Embassy in Damascus, she studied Italian and English at the SDI in Munich. Back on Lake Constance, she worked as a freelance translator and court interpreter before becoming a full-time writer in 2007. Her books are immensely popular and regular bestsellers. She tackles the big topics of our time with great sensitivity and insight, telling stories of dysfunctional families and relationships, toxic social structures, and threats against which it’s hard to protect ourselves and those around us. Following « Herbstvergessene », « Der Apfelsammler », « Rabenfrauen », « Das letzte Bild » and other novels, she has now written a panoramic two-book family drama (« Kaiserwald », out in Spring 2024, and « Solstice », out in Autumn 2024).
We sometimes worry that we’ve been a coward, hesitated too long – and missed out on something that would have made us a better, happier person, with better-looking and more fun pets and partners. This is what Stanišić’s new stories are about: the constant, gnawing feeling that maybe you should have taken the road less travelled, made the less obvious choice, told a lie for once. Like the cleaner, for instance, who, holding a goat’s-hair brush in their hands, finally decides to take the matter of life into their own hands too. Or like the author who travels to Heligoland for the first time, only to discover that he’s actually been there before. Or like the father who’s prepared to cheat, if that’s what it takes to finally beat his eight-year-old son at Memory…
In 1926, full of hope and longing, the ambitious young sculptor Constantin Avis moves to New York. A famous gallery owner wants to take him under his wing and facilitate his great breakthrough in this city of dreams. Constantin floats through his new life buoyed by an exciting new love affair, and the prospect of success – but threatens to lose touch with reality. How far can his art really take him? A whole century later, this is the question that Dora sets out to answer. It is early springtime on the Ligurian coast, and she is working on a novel about Constantin. She has moved here together with her son and a nanny, to find the peace that usually eludes her in her everyday life as an artist and mother. But the deeper she dives, the more her own story becomes intertwined with Constantin’s. Eventually, she realises that she can answer the sculptor’s questions only with her own life. An exceptionally charming tale of the unbreakable bond between art and life – as light as a feather, and yet so powerful that its thoughts will linger with you for a long time.
Paula grew up in Minsk, was sent to New York when she was young, dreamt of studying medicine and was a committed anarchist. But then she met her future husband, the founder of the state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion – and at the end of her life, she finds herself in a kibbutz in the Negev Desert. Her husband is expecting the arrival of his friend, Konrad Adenauer, who has just resigned as German Chancellor. Once again, it is down to Paula to organise the visit and arrange everything. Poverty, war, motherhood, and – again and again – loneliness: this novel is a memorial to a strong, courageous woman, who had to make many compromises in life, and became the First Lady of a country in which she did not believe. And who, even in old age, never stops doubting, searching and hoping.
Muse, secretary, wife: these are some of the labels used to describe the women whose influence on history has been erased. Their achievements have brought honour and fame to the men close to them – such as Karl Marx, Bertolt Brecht and Albert Einstein, who couldn’t have done what they did without their female friends, daughters or lovers – but they themselves remain largely unknown. The list includes scientists like Rosalind Franklin and Lise Meitner, who, unlike their male colleagues, were never celebrated for their discoveries; and authors and artists like Marie Hirsch, Lou Andreas-Salomé and Hedwig Thun, who hid behind male pseudonyms all their lives in order to be taken seriously. In « Stolen Fame », Schöler tells their stories, introducing us to the women who changed human history and showing that there are still issues around participation and visibility. Behind every successful man is a system that empowers him – and that system stands in every woman’s way.