"Sehnsucht: the yearning for faraway people or places. When Jonathan graduates from university with a degree in literature his father hands him two gifts: an alarm clock and the chance to work in the family business. But Jonathan has different plans. Leaving behind his eccentric family and stifling German hometown, he embarks on a hitchhiking adventure through Australia in search of Alice, an exchange student he knew back in school who left mysteriously one night without explanation. This stunning and rich debut novel is a story about coming of age and coming to terms with the past. It explores the lure of the open road and the joys of traversing geographic borders, language barriers, and cultural boundaries"--

Peter Arnds is the Director of Comparative Literature and Head of Italian at Trinity College Dublin. A native of Germany, he also lived in Kansas, Kabul, and Delhi. He is a member of PEN and has just finished his second novel, Detachment. He is currently working on a collection of short stories entitled The Lost Beauty of Happenstance.