Ping

An extraordinary novel about a playful declaration of love. The title "Ping" sets an interesting trail, and indeed, one only needs to mentally complete it to land on "Pong," the colloquial term for table tennis. A fast-paced novel about table tennis? Certainly. The story of a father-daughter relationship? Absolutely. Thomas Heimgartner would not be the author of sophisticated text constructions if he hadn't also developed a special formal solution for this elegantly playful story, which includes the design of the book pages. A two-sided game with alternating serves and narrative perspectives, where one side tells the story of 15-year-old Ralph and his table tennis clique in 1989. On the other side, 25-year-old Valérie engages in a dialogue with her distant father in the present, which unfolds page by page as excitingly as a good table tennis match. With a postscript by Manfred Papst.