German | Germany | Short Fiction
April, 2008Clemens Meyer was born in Halle/Saale in 1977 and lives in Leipzig. He started his working life as a builder, furniture removal man, and security guard, before studying at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig. Clemens Meyer won the MDR-Literaturwettbewerb in 2001 and the Rheingau-Literatur-Preis, the Märkisches Stipendium für Literatur, the Förderpreis zum Lessing-Preis and the Mara-Cassens-Preis for his first novel Als wir träumten, published in 2006. His short fiction collection Die Nacht, die Lichter was published by Fischer Verlage in February 2008 and contains the story "A Trip to the River."
German | Germany | Novel (excerpt)
September, 2007It is heating up in a small village in the flat hinterlands. The villagers spend their weekends bathing at the gravel pit and when a new villager, the beautiful Miranda, appears from the water, a group of friends find their relationships changing. Both Victor, recently jilted by his girlfriend, and his friend, the older, married artist Rudolf, woo her desperately. Their friend Asta is a life-coach who lectures to businessmen around the country and yet is falling apart inside as she loses all contact with her children who live with their father in Berlin. She cannot understand the men's fascination for this pretty normal looking woman. Nor can Rudolf's wife Emma, who after a whole life with Rudolf is starting to realize she has sacrificed her own life for his, all for nothing it seems. Miranda herself is married, but no one has met her husband. As passions and tensions flare, a spate of animal killings begins, and Mr Allyours, a hare, and Fledgling McFeather, a heron, decide to solve the mystery. McFeather has the laudable motives of making their community safe again, and he is not impressed with Mr Allyours' motives: he is besotted by a young doe, Lady Why, and wants to capture the killer to prove his love to her.
(Stefan Tobler)
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