Römische Tage

The voice of a generation. Anna Wallner, Die Presse

A young man arrives in the Eternal City to shake off the present. He seeks his own path, feeling foreign times living within him. In Rome, he remembers. In Rome, he falls in love. In Rome, he mourns. He encounters extraordinary people and discovers his purpose: to perceive everything, to leave nothing out. Roman Days leads to the many beginnings and endings of our world and questions what we will make of it tomorrow.

The narrator moves into an apartment diagonally across from the Casa di Goethe, and the city becomes his lover. Its stories unfold before his eyes: the murder of Caesar at Largo Argentina is as vivid to him as the scuffle of sunglasses vendors on the Corso. He immerses himself in a world full of contrasts: the lostness of young Italian women and the dwindling significance of the old intellectuals.

Ancient and modern ideals, radiant palaces, exuberant parties, and fading art. Locals, migrants, believers, tourists, beggars. Amidst it all, trash, a lot of trash. And time and again, the stabbing pain in his chest that the doctors refuse to take seriously. Enthusiastic and melancholic, light-footed and moving, Simon Strauss tells why the present cannot exist without the past.

Die Presse on Simon Strauss

Strauss has a beautiful, distinctive tone that carries the contemporary without wanting to show off, yet he also knows the sound of the fathers, coming from deep educational roots, sometimes despising himself for it, and then finding great laconicism and simple sensuality. Florian Illies, Die Zeit

Strauss is one of the greatest feuilleton talents of his generation, and as visually powerful and imaginative as he writes here, he possesses a genuinely literary talent. Gregor Dotzauer, Tagesspiegel

The power with which Simon Strauss presents linguistic images is captivating and exhilarating! ZDF aspekte

Simon Strauss hits the mark.