Über Menschen

Do we dare to be human?

Dora has moved to the countryside with her little dog. She desperately needed to get out of the city, even if she doesn't know exactly what she's running away from. Big city, lockdown, stressful job, an overzealous boyfriend, plus Donald Trump, Brexit and right-wing populism - when did the world actually get so mixed up? It was clear to Dora that Bracken, this small village in the nowhere of Brandenburg, is not the rural idyll that some city dwellers dream of. Everyone warned her about the province. Now she sits here anyway, in an old house on an overgrown plot of land, with a shaven-headed neighbour behind the garden wall who seems to fit all the preconceptions. But then things happen that shake her world view. She meets people who don't fit into any of the patterns and is faced with a challenge that demands an answer to the big question of what really matters in life. Juli Zeh's new great novel tells of our immediate present and the people it produces. About their biases, weaknesses and fears. And of their strengths, which come to the fore when they dare to be human.