Hochdeutschland

For his debut novel »Blut im Wasser« [Blood in Water], he won the Hotlist Prize of independent publishers. On June 7, 2018,  Alexander Schimmelbusch will read from »Hochdeutschland«, his fourth and most recent novel. 

Victor can no longer take his silly victorious existence as a successful investment banker seriously. All attempts to fall in love seem to be doomed to fail as it was his marriage. He is a product of market-oriented German society and the same skills on which his success in this system is based are now pointing him the way out – a revolution. 

He lives in a glass villa in the Taunus, has sex in the spa area of the Hotel Adlon if necessary and manages to keep the work-life balance of his bank's employees in a profitable imbalance. But all this leads nowhere. Fortunately, he meets the Italianophile Finance Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, whose lifelong dream is to glide through Milan with the Ferrari after his political career as an extremely rich investment banker. To do this, he needs Victor's help and in return supports him in founding a populist movement whose raw liveliness will redeem Victor.

In his novel Alexander Schimmelbusch sheds a bright light on the German people's soul and asks the central questions of our time: Is our system broken? What is Elite? Can we still communicate at all? Do we have principles? What price do you pay to live by your own rules? Is it time for a radical new beginning? For a zero hour, like after a war?