Karl-Heinz Ott: The Healing of Luzon

Two German couples meet at a resort in the Philippines. They were not driven there by the desire to lie on the beach, but by sheer desperation. "Incurable" was the medical diagnosis for one of each couple. They seek salvation from a miracle healer who performs operations without a scalpel in an abandoned zoo. Bock, once a famous theater director, dreams of a final grand production. Gela, his wife, has long wanted to leave him. For Tom and Rikka, the question arises whether it is only fate that binds them together. Karl-Heinz Ott confronts his characters and the questions of the ultimate things with a ruthlessness that carries a deeply human irony. Karl-Heinz Ott, born in 1957 in Ehingen on the Danube, has been awarded multiple times for his work, including the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize's promotion award (1999), the Alemannic Literature Prize (2005), the LiteraTour Nord Prize (2006), the Johann Peter Hebel Prize (2012), the Wolfgang Koeppen Prize (2014), and the Joseph Breitbach Prize (2021). His most recent publications with Hanser include "Die Auferstehung" (The Resurrection, novel, 2015), "Und jeden Morgen das Meer" (And Every Morning the Sea, novel, 2018), and "Hölderlins Geister" (Hölderlin's Ghosts, 2019).