Caroline Schmitt: "Monstergott"

Ben and Esther seem to have it all: a close relationship with Jesus Christ and central roles in their church - a dazzling spiritual retreat where the pastor wears expensive sneakers, his wife shares highlights from the sermon on Instagram and God loves us so much that he gave his only son, and so on.
But Ben has a problem that stands between him and his divine father. No one knows about it, not even his sister Esther. The more desperate he is to free himself from the clutches of sin, the more it tyrannizes his life.
Esther has learned all her life that a woman is submissive. That's what the Bible says. That is God's will. But she finally wants to be taken seriously as an independent person and as a musician. When she meets someone she thought she had lost but had never forgotten, she feels a hunger for the world out there that doesn't seem so depraved.
Caroline Schmitt, born in 1992, studied journalism at the University of the Arts London. She lives in Berlin and works as a freelance journalist for Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Deutsche Welle. Her literary debut Liebewesen was published in 2023.