A man and a woman meet late in life and experience once again deep affection and happiness, in everyday life and on travels to the landscape of his youth – the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. But their delights are soon joined by the infirmities of old age, Jakov becomes increasingly forgetful.
A name fails to materialise, an appointment is missed, a garbage bag is thrown into the neighbour’s pond. The doctor’s exam reveals: Jakov’s memory has not just become sketchy. His orientation...
A man and a woman meet late in life and experience once again deep affection and happiness, in everyday life and on travels to the landscape of his youth – the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. But their delights are soon joined by the infirmities of old age, Jakov becomes increasingly forgetful.
A name fails to materialise, an appointment is missed, a garbage bag is thrown into the neighbour’s pond. The doctor’s exam reveals: Jakov’s memory has not just become sketchy. His orientation is also going to keep disappearing, his language is going to run dry. Herta struggles to stay optimistic, but the more Jakov loses touch with the world and is reeled in by his past – a former lover, the falling-out with his father – the more she needs support as well.
With great tenderness Urs Faes observes a couple under the pressure of sickness. He talks about intimate moments and increasing distance, about care and exhaustion, about the bewilderment when a person loses their self and long-since suppressed things become present again. And about the power of empathy, an understanding beyond words.
»Urs Faesʼ novels talk about the attempt to love and to cope with love and life.« Sibylle Birrer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Faes talks about […] the subliminal and the submerged that breaks forth and questions all certainties of the life lived until then. It is moving and lends a great, convincing power to this […] book.« Rainer Moritz, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Urs Faes is a master of nuance.« Luzia Stettler, SRF
»Urs Faesʼ novels talk about the attempt to love and to cope with love and life.« Sibylle Birrer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Faes talks about […] the subliminal and the submerged that breaks forth and questions all certainties of the life lived until then. It is moving and lends a great, convincing power to this […] book.« Rainer Moritz, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Urs Faes is a master of nuance.« Luzia...
Urs Faes, born in Aarau, Switzerland, in 1947, lives and works in Zurich and San Feliciano, Italy. In 2008 he was awarded the Preis der Schweizerischen Schillerstiftung.
Urs Faes, born in Aarau, Switzerland, in 1947, lives and works in Zurich and San Feliciano, Italy. In 2008 he was awarded the Preis der...
After years abroad a man returns to the forlorn yet familiar valley in the Black Forest. He walks the old paths through the heavy snow, remembers the bitter inheritance dispute surrounding his...
English world rights (Harvill Secker)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Netherlands (De Bezige Bij)
Request Stop is Urs Faes' most intimate book to date, which grew out of his personal experience of sickness and was written so as to be able to hold on to a pen, to words, to images and to memory. Writing as self-defence against one’s own frailty – and in so doing, coming face to face with life.
Immediately after diagnosis, he is...
Romania (Univers)
Chinese simplex rights (Alpha Books), Bulgaria (Atlantis)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Czech Republic (Archa), Lithuania (Alma Littera)