Norbert Gstrein: Im ersten Licht

In the organizer's words:

Two world wars, one century: an idiosyncratic life full of beauty, tragedy and contradictions. Norbert Gstrein's overwhelming new novel

Norbert Gstrein gives us a whole human life. Yet every life is fragile in this novel, which begins with a blow from an axe: Adrian's father makes him unfit for the First World War as a teenager, perhaps saving him in the process. The stubborn, tender man who limps through more than eighty years of life from then on is the wonder of this story. Adrian twice sees his world come to an end, twice has to deal with young men who were less fortunate than him, and in his old age experiences the unexpected love story of a man who was brought up to do everything but love. How to live in the shadow of war and killing? With a fearless look into the past, "In the First Light" confronts this great question of the present.