Isabel is a beautiful woman, but no longer beautiful and young enough to keep modeling, and not established enough to get any major roles as an actress. She’s also at the end of her rope when it comes love, so she leaves her boyfriend and decides to create a new life for herself.
She bids adieu to pleasure and chooses the road to chastity. After her parents, despite great efforts, fail to find her a suitable candidate for marriage, she meets Marcus, and the story of Isabel and the soldier begins.
Marcus is a war veteran from the Kosovo conflict, traumatized and only interested in leading a minimalist existence. Their encounter changes both of their lives forever and leads her on a fascinating and menacing journey into Marcus’ past.
With his usual eloquence, accurate observations and conciseness, Zaimoglu leads his readers into a world of lowered expectations of life, broken by love, pain, regret and revenge.
“Feridun Zaimoglu makes a serious attempt to write literature that is not bourgeois – something that hardly any author has had the courage to do.” Die Zeit
