The God of that Summer

A child in the war: at the start of 1945, twelve-year-old Luisa Norff has to flee to the countryside with her mother and her older sister as the bombardment of Kiel has begun. The estate owned by her brother-in-law Vinzent, a SS-officer, becomes an unexpected site of freedom: no more school, and as the Allied bombers are flying eastwards and more and more refugees are arriving, the young dreamer Luisa is roaming through the woods and tries to understand life from this side of the fires: What is this agitation she feels when she sees the young milker Walter, who are the prisoners at Klostersee, where did her sister Billie disappear to all of a sudden, and where does the wig maker actually get hair from? And as she herself experiences what all women are afraid of these days during Vinzent’s birthday celebrations, Luisa breaks down under the burden of the inexplicable.

Ralf Rothmann’s great novel To Die in Spring, translated into twenty-five languages, was a moving drama at the edge of the battlefields. The God of That Summer is an equally touching story about the climate of delusion and denunciation during the last months of a war that eclipses everybody’s heart forever and has a twelve-year-old say, and rightfully so: »I’ve experienced everything.«

»This new book’s power lies in its depiction of civilians trying to lead ordinary lives during the horror of war. The two sisters bicker over small things, as siblings do, but these are not normal times – Billie advises Luisa how best to survive a rape. It is a disturbing read. There are no heroes, no principled stands. Just one teenager learning how to be an adult from people compromising with evil or in denial that they are on the brink of defeat. It is shattering stuff, but Rothmann is tender towards his characters and this book is as memorable as his last.« Antonia Senior, The Times

»a compelling tale of lost innocence« The Economist

»the picture he paints is simultaneously compelling, repulsive and colourfully vivid throughout« John Miers, The Critic

»Reminding us that ... one can display inner nobility even in the midst of destruction, The God of that Summer sings humanity’s song of songs. But without the usual Sunday sermon.« Die literarische Welt 

»Rothmann’s wilful, ancient Grimm is as poetic as he is unsparing.« Frankfurter Rundschau

»This masterful novel is a deeply moving depiction of the last months of the war.« Rolling Stone

»History’s fine print lies beneath the ground and can explode at any time, [Alexander] Kluge once remarked. It has exploded for Rothmann and has resulted in the most important of his recent novels.« Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»Ralf Rothmann has written a great novel. He writes effortlessly with a naturalness which is neither overly emotional nor too cool.« Spiegel Online

»Another literary masterpiece. Intelligent, gripping, and darkly resonant.« Wilhelmshavener Zeitung

»The more one ... reads, the more one thinks Rothmann’s books should be required reading at school. What war means to a young teen: that is what this book is about.« Aachener Zeitung

»With existential drive, but not without humour, Ralf Rothmann tells the story of the horrors of the last months of World War II from the perspective of a 12-year old boy.« Hamburger Abendblatt

»With great sensitivity the Kleist-Prize winner depicts the grim atmosphere of denunciations and delusion during this awful time.« Ruhr Nachrichten

»How can one continue to live when a war of annihilation together with a murderous ideology have destroyed everything humane? How can one remain a child in this in-between time at the beginning of 1945…? Ralf Rothmann’s moving and excellently told novel deals precisely with these questions.« Siegener Zeitung

»With great precision and an eye for sensual detail Rothmann once again returns to the years of the war, setting nature’s wholeness against a world which has been turned upside down. And over and over again he finds glimmers of hope, even dignity, in the worst filth.« Westdeutsche Allgemeine

»The God of that Summer is an even riskier ... book than his previous one, To Die in Spring. ... To put it bluntly, The God of that Summer is yet another key to the understanding Ralf Rothmann’s work as a whole.« Deutschlandfunk

»It’s true: thanks to its narrative style, in a strange way this novel gives the impression of having been written in the 1950s ... Rothmann is always extremely close to his characters’ experiences.« SWR

»The haunting portrayal of conflict and carnage in the final weeks of the second world war makes this German novel a modern classic.« Rachel Seiffert, The Guardian on To Die in Spring