A charming portrait of Angela Merkel beyond the spotlight as a child, daughter, friend, pupil, student, scientist, reader, cook, and connoisseur – and as a dreamer and realist.
In his new book, Spiegel bestselling author Torsten Körner assembles a kaleidoscope of telling scenes from Angela Merkel’s life, all of which explore the question of what kind of person you have to be to resist being ground down by the wheels of power. The result is a charming portrait in fragments that tells us more about Angela Merkel as a person than many a thick biography. Many Merkel observers act as if the chancellor had cast a spell over the eyes of the world. She is a mystery, unreadable, we don’t know anything about her – so the persistent cliché goes. Really?
Torsten Körner proves otherwise, inviting us to enter uncharted Merkel territory. His new book shows who the most powerful woman in the world was when she wasn’t powerful. Because you won’t find the person Angela Merkel is behind all the familiar images, but between them, at their edges, and in their shadows. Why did tears come to her eyes once when she was minister of the environment? Why did she spend her first West German money on a kebab? When did she curse crudely and clearly? And what was it like when the climate chancellor met Greta Thunberg?
The answers to these questions and many more have resulted in a brilliantly written memoir with exciting insights into Angela Merkel’s personality.
