Ewald Arenz "Fünf, sechs, sieben, acht" x Harbour Front Literaturfestival Hamburg

You can’t turn back the clock of life. But maybe you can start over.

Anton is sixty and a tap dancer. He’s not as quick as he used to be, but with his experience and expressiveness, he—still—outdances everyone else. When a new artistic director takes over at his theater, Anton is confident he’ll get the job as choreographer. But she decides otherwise. Of all people, she brings in Emma—his daughter.

For Anton, this is a humiliation that cuts deeper than any other professional setback. He is hurt, angry, and ashamed; yet at the same time, he is proud of his daughter. The rejection stirs something within him that he has long kept at bay: the feeling of growing older, of mortality, and the question of whether the life he has led was truly the right one.

And suddenly, Jo is back. The great love from long ago, who one day vanished without a trace. What if Anton had followed her? Could he have led a different, better life?

Ewald Arenz’s “Five, Six, Seven, Eight” is a novel about fathers and daughters, about missed opportunities, about the art of carrying on—and about the challenge of not writing oneself off too soon. Because it’s only over when it’s over. Until then, life is meant to be lived.

Ewald Arenz, born in Nuremberg in 1965, works as a teacher at a high school in Nuremberg. His novels and plays have won numerous awards. He reached a wide audience with *Alte Sorten* and *Der große Sommer*; his most recent works are *Zwei Leben* and *Katzentage*.