Read. Talk. Share.
Read our book of the month and join us for a discussion online! Simply register via Eventbrite to receive the Zoom access info. Let's keep reading and sharing experiences with the material!
Book Klub is free and open to everyone interested, but participants must purchase the individual texts themselves and are expected to have read the title to be discussed prior to the meeting.
Feel free to read this month’s selection in English or its original German. The discussion will be in English.
Registration
About the novel:
We've all got two families: the one we're born with, and the one we choose ourselves. Heiko hasn't finished high school. His father is an alcoholic. His mother left. His housemate organizes illegal dogfights. He works in his uncle's gym, one frequented by bikers and skinheads. He definitely isn't one of society's winners, but he has his chosen family, the pack of soccer hooligans he's grown up with. His uncle is the leader, and gradually Heiko has risen in the ranks, until he's recognized in the stands of his home team and beyond the stadium walls, where, after the game, he and his gang represent their city in brutal organized brawls with hooligans from other localities.
Philipp Winkler's stunning, widely acclaimed novel won the prize for best debut and was a finalist for the most prestigious German book award. It offers an intimate, devastating portrait of working-class, post-industrial urban life on the fringes and a universal story about masculinity in the twenty-first century, with a protagonist whose fear of being left behind has driven him to extremes. Narrated with lyrical authenticity by Heiko himself, it captures the desperation and violence that permeate his world, along with the yearning for brotherhood.
About the author:
© dpa picture alliance
Philipp Winkler was born near Hanover, Germany, in 1986. He studied Creative Writing in Hildesheim and has spent time in Japan, Kosovo, Albania, and Serbia. He lives in Leipzig, Germany. Winkler received the ZDF aspekte Literature Prize for the best German-language debut with
Hooligan, which was also placed on the German Book Prize shortlist. A stage adaptation of
Hooligan has already appeared, and a film adaptation is in the works.
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