The Choir

Set against the backdrop of an age in which all certainties seem to have been eroded, Anna Katharina Hahn’s new novel takes a single women’s choir in Stuttgart as a lens through which to view the social fabric of an entire city.

The lockdowns are a thing of the past, and finally rehearsals can take place in-person again! Even before the pandemic had completely decimated their social routines and ties, choir practice had been the highlight of the week for Alice, Marie, and their older friend Lena. For far too long, they had been either completely unable to sing or forced to do so behind masks or online. Now that they’re back at rehearsals, they realise just how much they missed it. And while their friendships have survived the pandemic, so have their petty conflicts and quarrels. Alice, successful in just about everything she does in her professional life, is pained by the fact that Marie has stopped speaking to her. While Lena, a retired editor at a publisher, has no illusions about ageing. And none of the members of the choir make too much of a secret about their resentment for Cora, whose living situation is precarious and who uses the choir to try to find a job. But when the young, lonely university student Sophie turns up one night, all kinds of emotions are stirred up. Particularly for Alice, who suddenly discovers feelings that catch her entirely by surprise.

In The Choir, Anna Katharina Hahn delivers an empathetic but unflinching portrait of women from three generations – in all their strengths and weaknesses, their sensitivity and their ruthlessness.

»As is always the case with Hahn, a great deal happens in The Choir in a highly confined setting, and it's all depicted in an extremely economical way... But first and foremost, Hahn's story is about mental illness and about how imperceptible the passage between the normal and the pathological can be. Just one step, and you find yourself in another world, which might be enticing, dirty, and free, but also highly dangerous and lonely.« Richard Kämmerlings, DIE WELT

»That’s what is at the heart of Anna Katharina Hahn’s subtle art: it is not about seeing through people, but about truly seeing them.« Paul Jandl, NZZ

»[The Choir] possesses an incredible density of motifs that unfurl their effect regardless of whether the reader unpacks all the allusions they contain – just as one can be seized and carried away by a melody without knowing its origins.« Patrick Bahners, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»A prophet, but not thanks to some magical gift but a spirit of constant attentiveness.« Judith von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau