Leif Randt: Let's talk about feelings

In the organizer's words:

Moderation: Lisa Kreißler

An optimistic book about sad farewells: Leif Randt invents the coming-of-middle age.

Marian Flanders, 41, sells perhaps the most beautiful clothes in the world in his West Berlin boutique, but he is rarely financially successful. When his mother Carolina - a once iconic model - passes away after a long illness, Marian organizes an alternative funeral service for selected guests. Marian believes that this event marks the beginning of the more joyless half of life. But what follows is a year of transformation. Successful half-siblings and ambivalent flirtations take Marian to places such as Plaza Konami, Sapporo, New Delhi and Wolfsburg. False friendliness turns into warm-hearted defiance, hypothermic sadness grows into quiet euphoria.

Leif Randt is the author of five novels and a feature film. His prose has received numerous awards, most recently the Hölderlin Prize of the City of Bad Homburg (2023).

After working in Erlangen, Uppsala and Leipzig, Lisa Kreißler lives as a freelance author and literary critic on a farm in the Schaumburg region.