Der Tod des Vaters

A family gathers for the father's funeral: The patriarch is dead, the throne in the family hierarchy is vacant. Yet he continues to live on, as everyone remains trapped in the meaningless gestures of a bygone community, moving like puppets, aimless and almost comical, for the hell of the bourgeois family – the true protagonist of this story – lives on long after death. In a language that is both sober and magical, free from sentimentality or autobiographical gestures, Alice Ceresa exposes the mechanisms of a seemingly timeless social reality. In her dissecting analysis, life transforms into a parody of the societal prison from which the father's death nonetheless points to an escape: "In the end, the family will finally explode" and make way for daughters "so independent and outstanding that they will dominate the world." This publication marks the beginning of further works by this essential author who deserves to be (re)discovered.