Norbert Gstrein: "In the First Light"

NORBERT GSTREIN, born in 1961 in Tyrol, studied mathematics at the University of Innsbruck and attended further seminars in language philosophy at Stanford and Erlangen. He has received several awards, including the Alfred Döblin Prize in 1999, the Literature Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in 2001, the Franz Nabl Prize in 2004, the Anton Wildgans Prize in 2013, the Austrian Book Prize in 2019, the Thomas Mann Prize in 2021, and the Honorary Award of the State of Tyrol in 2023. His most recent works include: "More than Just a Stranger," 2023; "Four Days, Three Nights," 2022; "The Second Jacob," 2021.

About the book: Two world wars, a century: a distinctive life full of beauty, tragedy, and contradictions. Norbert Gstrein offers us an entire human life. In this novel, every life is fragile, beginning with a blow from an axe: Adrian's father renders him unfit for military service in World War I as a teenager, perhaps saving him in the process. The stubborn, tender man who limps through over eighty years of life is the miracle of this narrative. Adrian witnesses his world collapse twice, interacts with young men who were less fortunate than he, and experiences in old age the unexpected love story of a man who was raised to do everything but love. How do we live in the shadow of wars and killing? (Publisher's text)