Sechs Koffer

A touching family story and a virtuoso literary crime novel of great political relevance. Every family has secrets and rumors that live on from generation to generation. Sometimes, it’s a matter of life and death. In his new novel, Maxim Biller tells of such a rumor, whose malevolent power extends into the present. "Six Suitcases" – the story of a Russian-Jewish family fleeing from East to West, from Moscow through Prague to Hamburg and Zurich – is a virtual literary masterpiece. Told from six perspectives, the novel recounts a great betrayal, a denunciation. The victim: the grandfather of the now Berlin-based narrator, who was executed in the Soviet Union in 1960. Under suspicion: one’s own relatives. What is achieved here in such a small space is unparalleled in contemporary German literature.