Feridun Zaimoglu liest SOHN OHNE VATER

The unforgettable journey of a grieving son to his father's grave

"Sohn ohne Vater" (Son Without a Father) tells the story of a grieving son, the cohesion of a family, deceptive memories and a journey to a foreign country - to his mother and his dead father.

It is early in the morning when the mother calls to tell him that his father has died. The narrator doesn't know what to do. He is alone in his grief. Who can help him, who can comfort him? Little by little, he realizes that he has to go to Turkey. He has to see his mother, support her - and stand at his father's grave to say goodbye to him.

The narrator, a writer from Kiel, suffers from a fear of flying. He asks two friends to take him with them in their camper van. Together they plan the journey: via Linz, Szeged and Edirne to Edremit and back. Over five thousand kilometers. It is the beginning of an adventurous, feverish road trip across Europe, characterized by the shimmering memories of the father and his many lives: of the husband, the pieceworker, the storyteller or the septuagenarian whose dyed sideburns could throw an entire vacation settlement into turmoil.

In his new novel, Feridun Zaimoglu poses the question of how we remember those who are closest to us and yet sometimes seem strangely alien to us, who love and shape us, who we care about - and who, despite everything, we have to let go at some point.