Photo: © Goethe-Institut London/Nicolas Gäckle
How do you spend the time when you are forced to be inactive? How do you deal with the loss of loved ones? Who will carry on the legacy? When Richard, a retired professor, accidently meets asylum seekers at the Oranienplatz in Berlin, he comes up with the idea of searching for the answers to his questions in places where nobody else searches: speaking with young African refugees who, stranded in Berlin, are forced to wait. And suddenly, this world looks at him, a citizen of the old Europe, and knows – perhaps better than he knows – who he actually is.
Jenny Erpenbeck in her inimitable way tells a story of looking away and looking more closely, of death and war, of eternal waiting and of all that is hidden beneath the surface.
