Hampels Fluchten
Hampel’s Escapes
Kiepenheuer und Witsch Verlag, Köln 2000, 496 pages
With hat, waistcoat and backpack, Heinrich Hampel, thirty years of age and bed salesman by profession, hikes whistling to the checkpoint of the German-German border. [...] He is fleeing not from East to West, but rather the reverse, from West to East. [...] Not out of political conviction; he is simply up to his ears in debt. Capitalism is too much for him. Michael Kumpfmüller catches out his readers, at least those of his own background and generation, in their clichés about this Atlantis by the name of the GDR. Hampels Fluchten is not only an odd, very well told novel, but also a daring book. Entertainment at the highest level with tender loving rows.
Michael Kumpfmüller – Biography
Hajo Steiner: „Der deutsche Hampel"
© Die Zeit, 17.08.2000
