Sand

Description

While the Munich Massacre by Palestinians is taking place at the Olympic Village, mysterious things are happening in the Sahara. Four men are murdered in a Hippy Commune, a suitcase of money disappears, and a detective still wet behind the ears is on the case. A confused nuclear spy, a platinum blonde American, a man with no memory - North Africa 1972...

orn in 1965, Wolfgang Herrndorf originally worked as a painter and illustrator before starting to write novels. He had his literary breakthrough in 2010 withTschick,which has sold more than a million copies in Germany.By this point he was already suffering from an incurable brain tumour. He continued to write for the next few years, completingSand,which won the 2012 Leipzig Book Fair prize.He also documented his experiences of fighting his illness on a blog,Arbeit and Struktur, which was later published in book form. In 2013 he took his own life.

So dazzling and original... a masterpiece... culminating in one of the greatest twists I've read Daily Telegraph Herrndorf... writes with an arresting cinematic vividness, and there is more than a whiff of Coen brothers' mayhem about the plot Sunday Times Brilliant, anarchic, darkly comic... outrageous, clever... a bravura performance... the publishers have already referenced the Coen Brothers, and to that endorsement add Quentin Tarantino Irish Times A careful subversion of the crime thriller genre... Sand is self-assured in its aim and delivery: an emphatic statement of intent TLS Herrndorf's enjoyment as he plays with our expectations is almost palpable Glasgow Herald A hit in Germany... part Coen bros, part John Le Carre Sunday Star German literary thriller that wears its intellectual cred boldly. Surreal comedy hangs a hallucinogenic pall over the reality of post-colonial North Africa in 1972, creating a confusing atmosphere around the central plot strand: who really killed the hippies in the desert commune? Sunday Times Crime Club [Wolfgang Herrndorf] wrote an earlier book, translated in English as Why We Took the Car, but Sand will be his last. It alone ought to assure him a place in twenty-first century literary history: it's bold, anarchic, blackly funny, and completely unafraid Elle Thinks (blog) Herrndorf has crafted something special here... the enigmatic Sand is the literary equivalent of a cactus: beautifully detailed, hard to get a grip on but sure to survive amid desolation and stand out sharply on a flat, monotone landscape where others sink into the dust Hits the Fan (blog) Undoubted literary merit... sustains uncertainty until the final pages, both for the reader as well as for the protagonist Crime Review Enigmatic and moving Die Zeit One of the most original and stylistically impressive German writers Neue Zurcher Zeitung A great writer. A smiling, friendly, sympathetic nihilism shines through his writing Frankfurter Rundschau He remains a witty and incredibly well read artist, who creates a great work of art as he juggles on a tightrope here with violence, death, doom, forgetting and the nothingness of existence FAZ A literary thriller... a terrific novel set in the desert Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung A gripping and marvelously comic thriller with a philosophical subtext Focus