Blood Book

Blood Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE GERMAN BOOK PRIZE, THE SWISS BOOK PRIZE AND THE JÜRGEN PONTO LITERATURE PRIZE

'Powerful'
Times Literary Supplement

'Formally adventurous'
New York Times

'Everything about it is fantastic'
Die Welt

'One can only marvel'
Die Zeit

'An irrepressible literary talent'
Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin

'An important new voice for a new form of writing'
Tages-Anzeiger

An unnamed protagonist is prompted by their grandmother's slide into dementia to investigate their family history. The more their grandmother forgets, the more the narrator tries to remember: what was it in their childhood that prompted them to feel so alienated from their body? Why is their grandmother struggling to differentiate between herself and her sister who died as a child? And what happened to their great aunt, who disappeared when she was young? But tracking down answers to these questions proves difficult in a family steeped in secrecy.

Blood Book traces the heritage we have no choice but to carry: gender, language, class, trauma. Singular in style and form, it blends biography and fantasy, fairy tale and history, transforming them into a deeply personal and poetic form of expression.

Published in the US as Sea, Mothers, Swallow, Tongues