Der Bildverlust oder Durch die Sierra de Gredos

In the Sierra de Gredos, a nearly two-hundred-kilometer-long ridge stretches from east to west across the Central Massif, with the Pico de Almanzor remaining snow-covered until spring. The bank employee, whose adventures this novel recounts, sets off from a northwestern river port town to traverse this mountain range and meet the author in the village of Mancha, with whom she has signed a classic supplier contract. She, the powerful puppet master with various names, who grew up with her grandparents in a Wendish village after her parents died in a fatal car accident, then traveled extensively and once starred in a famous film, pays the author and manages his financial affairs; in return, he tells her story according to predetermined rules. Digressions are allowed, and the only measure is: "to feel oneself being told." We learn about the encounters of the wondrous adventurer with the people in the Sierra, the bus driver and his son, the wandering stonemason, the jaw harp player, the city outskirts idiot, and not least the brother who spent a long time in prison, and the daughter who has disappeared yet remains ever-present in memory and longing. Past and future, present and dreamt time flow into one another in a heightened present shaped by images. The novel is about a "greater time," in which observation, love, kindness, beauty, and peace are not merely envisioned as utopian possibilities but can be brought forth and made sustainable in stories "for this one and that one, and this one and that one, and yet another and another long story?".