About the book:
A quick glance on the bus. Matei recognizes his former tormentor from prison in Bucharest. It is the liberated 1990s, everything seems possible, even justice ...

Young Matei grows up in the vibrant Bucharest of the 1930s, but his family loses everything during the dictatorship. And Matei is sentenced to work in a camp in the Danube Delta for writing political poems, where nature is fascinating but merciless and life is hard, sometimes deadly. The humanity among the prisoners keeps him alive - as does the hatred. After years he is pardoned, experiences family happiness, but never real peace. When Matei sees the "beautiful Pană", an interrogation officer, again after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the new, great freedom, he finally wants to face the ghosts of the past. And comes up with a plan.

Catalin Dorian Florescu tells the story of the drama of the European East, which continues to this day, through the twists and turns of a life, in stirring, poetic images. A great reflection on happiness, revenge, justice and the question: when is man truly free?

About the author:
Catalin Dorian Florescu was born in 1967 in Timișoara, Romania. He first left the country for medical reasons in 1976 and traveled with his father via Rome to New York, where they were unable to build a new life and returned behind the Iron Curtain. The author wrote about this period of his life in his debut novel "Wunderzeit", published in 2001.
The author has lived in Zurich since 1982, where he studied psychology and psychopathology at the University of Zurich. For several years, Catalin Florescu worked in the field of addiction therapy. From December 2001, he lived as a freelance writer for 20 years. He has been working in a psychotherapy practice again for 5 years.

Florescu's work includes 8 novels, a collection of stories, a book about happiness in our time and many articles, essays and speeches. In 2011, his novel "Jacob Decides to Love" was awarded the Swiss Book Prize. Elke Heidenreich wrote in the FAZ: "With this book, Florescu catapults himself into the first rank of German-language literature". The Austrian newspaper der Standard wrote about his work in general: "When Catalin Dorian Florescu tells stories, the pages blossom". Further literary prizes: Eichendorff Prize and Anna Seghers Prize. In Romania, he received the Cavalier Medal for Cultural Merit.

His latest novel "Matei discovers freedom" was published by Rowohlt Berlin in spring 2026.