About the Book
A quick glance on the bus. In Bucharest, Matei recognizes his former tormentor from prison. It’s the liberated 1990s; everything seems possible—even justice.
Young Matei grows up in the vibrant Bucharest of the 1930s, but under the dictatorship, his family loses everything. And Matei is convicted for writing political poems and sentenced to labor in a camp in the Danube Delta, where nature is fascinating but unforgiving, and life is hard—sometimes deadly. The humanity among the prisoners keeps him alive—as does the hatred. Years later, he is pardoned and finds family happiness, though never true peace. When Matei, in the new, vast freedom following the fall of the Iron Curtain, sees “the handsome Pană”—an interrogation officer—again, he decides to finally confront the ghosts of the past. And he hatches a plan.
Spanning a lifetime, Catalin Dorian Florescu recounts, through a narrative full of twists and turns and stirring, poetic imagery, the drama of Eastern Europe that continues to this day. A profound reflection on happiness, revenge, justice, and the question: When is a person truly free?
The author
Catalin Dorian Florescu, born in Romania in 1967, spent his childhood under the communist dictatorship. In 1982, his family managed to move to the West. Florescu studied psychology in Zurich and works in a therapeutic practice. For his novels, including *Wunderzeit*, *Jacob Decides to Love*, and *The Man Who Brings Happiness*, he has received numerous awards, including the Swiss Book Prize, the Anna Seghers Prize, and the Eichendorff Literature Prize; in Romania, he was awarded the Knight’s Medal for Cultural Merit. Catalin Dorian Florescu lives in Zurich.
Advance ticket sales
Tickets cost 10 euros in advance and 12 euros at the box office.
For ticket reservations, registration, and information, contact the Literaturbüro in the City of Salzgitter’s Cultural Services Department,
by calling 05341 / 839-3752 or by emailing literaturbuerostadt.salzgitterde.
Tickets are also available at the local advance sales locations: the Lesezeichen bookstore in Salzgitter-Bad and the bookstore in the medical center in Lebenstedt.
