From a writer whose work is considered "among the most significant prose and poetry written not just in the GDR but in all of postwar Germany" (Joshua Cohen), a digressive masterwork in the tradition of Heinrich Böll, Imre Kértesz, and Dasa Drndic that interrogates lust, God, statelessness, addiction, capitalism, and above all else the writer's place in "a century of lies."

Wolfgang Hilbig (1941-2007) was one of the major German writers to emerge in the postwar era. Though raised in East Germany, he proved so troublesome to the authorities that in 1985 he was granted permission to emigrate west. The author of over 20 books, he received virtually all of Germany's major literary prizes, capped by the 2002 Georg Büchner Prize, Germany's highest literary honor.