Goethe Book Club
© Darf Publishers
Read and discuss works by contemporary German authors in this new series. All books can be read in their recent English translations or in the original German; our discussion will be in English. Coordinated by Chris Walker together with Goethe Pop Up Kansas City, the Goethe Book Club focuses on contemporary fiction and will explore experiences and thoughts about the text.
All our selections can be obtained online via most major vendors in hard copy or digital format and at
The Raven Book Store. You can also borrow a hard copy from the Pop Up Library where we hold two copies of each book in German and in English.
My Father was a Man on Land and a Whale in the Water / Mein Vater war ein Mann an Land und im Wasser ein Walfisch by Michelle Steinbeck
A child attacks Loribeth with an iron while she is sleeping. In retaliation Loribeth throws the iron onto the child from an upstairs window, packs the damaged body into a suitcase and sets off on her travels. Thus starts Steinbeck’s unusual, poetic novella about a young woman’s transition from childhood to adulthood. Loribeth and her suitcase begin an odyssey through nightmarish locations in search of her absent father. What ensues is a Freudian adult fairytale in this exciting debut by young Swiss author Michelle Steinbeck.
Michelle Steinbeck was born in Lenzburg, Switzerland in 1990. She writes prose, poetry and drama; reportage and columns. She works as editor-in-chief at
Fabrikzeitung and is the organiser of
Babelsprech, a forum for young international poetry. Steinbeck lives in Basel.
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