With force and speed, Helene Hegemann writes about the stark opposites of our modern world, best to be observed in a big city like Berlin. Martial arts and homelessness, wealth and repression, madness and sanity, raw violence and the weakness needed to prevent more violence are the currents flowing through this eerie and haunting novel.
N lives on a railroad line that runs between a deprived area and the residential district on the other side of the city. Two worlds. N knows both. And a third in the middle: the martial arts school where she teaches, prepares for upcoming fights, and begins an affair with a politician from the defense committee. Her existence is marked by opposites: rich and poor, powerlessness and muscle building, utmost discipline, and boundless aggression against herself.
One morning, N discovers mysterious signs on the firewall across from her apartment. They aren’t letters, hieroglyphics, or pictures, but she immediately senses that they mean something. They haunt her.
Then, suddenly, there are suitcases and bags outside her door. They belong to a homeless young woman who is sleeping in the stairwell and claims to be connected to Striker, the legendary graffiti artist and probable originator of the signs. Who is she? What does she want from N? And why does N have the sickening feeling that she is facing herself every time she runs into the young woman?
