What holds a family together when there seem to be only centrifugal forces at work, and everything seems to be heading towards something breaking? In the end, only your own story. Dana von Suffrin has written a virtuoso novel about modern Jewish life between Munich and Tel Aviv.

The death of Rosa’s father and the liquidation of his apartment set many things in motion that she would have preferred stayed the way they were. The story of the Jeruscher family is a jumble of quarrels, attempted or successful escapes, longings and disappointed hopes, and the futile desire to find a home somewhere. Now everything is back: the memories of her crazy childhood in the 90s, the breakdown of her parents’ marriage and her relatives in Israel, but also her missing older sister with whom she had broken for good reason. With great narrative skill and black humor, Dana von Suffrin tells of a German-Jewish family, whose life continues to resonate with an entire century of violence and expulsion – and of two sisters who are divided and then reconciled because they understand something about each other that nobody else does.

Born in Munich in 1985, Dana von Suffrin studied in her hometown as well as in Naples and Jerusalem. In 2017 she was awarded a PhD with a thesis on the role of science and ideology in early Zionism. Her debut novel Otto received multiple honors, including the Klaus Michael Kühne Prize (2019), the Ernst Hofrichter Prize (2020), and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize (2020). She lives in Munich.

Presented in German
Featuring a musical performance by Barenboim-Said Akademie students Omar Bishara and Francisco Pais