Suhrkamp Insel

The story begins with the London riots: the losers of consumer society take to the streets to show the world that they exist; cars and shops are set on fire. Young advertising executive Jan’s world is turned upside down.

He’s made a lot of money on campaigns for the fashion industry, but when he gets swept up in the unrest he comes to realise: capitalism must be overthrown, and it must be done with its own means. Jan finds the perfect allies in the activist Slavia and the artist Mikael Mikael. Together they found RLF, a lifestyle company specialising in transforming the desire for protest and dissent into commodities; the goal is to bring the system to the brink of collapse through a revolutionary act.

But the revolution comes at a price, and someone will have to pay it – maybe even with their life. Novel, artwork, film, fashion statement – RLF is a trans-medial event with cameos by Stéphane Hessel, Oliviero Toscani, Femen, and many others.

»The novel reads like a particularly generic piece of genre fiction, a crude thriller with oodles of conspiracy and even more seduction. But as a thriller it also bleeds over into reality, which makes it dizzyingly believable.« Tobias Becker, Kultur Spiegel

Friedrich von Borries reads from his new novel RLF: