 Award for Emerging Talent of the City of Hamburg
Hebbel Award |  | Mareike Krügel – My Father's Daughter
fiction
316pp
» About the author English sample translation (pdf)
>> Spanish edition nominated for the Premio Cálamo
>> Honorable Mention at the New York Book Festival
»Women belong on top«, he said with vehemence.
»Decent women always lie beneath«, I said.
»How am I to know that you’re decent«, he said.
The novel revolves around the world of F. Lauritzen Funeral Home and the life of their only daughter Felicia, called Felix, future heir of the family business. But - when death is your business, what is your life? For Felicia, the world outside of her family-owned funeral home is at least as challenging as – and far less predictable than – the one inside. By moving to the city and taking up the business of reading tarot cards her tribulations in this cathartic journey of hers are played out against the solemn backdrop of the funeral home she’s grown up with. Erotic variety is provided by the occasional visits of Kohlmorgen, the truck driver, and essential woman-to-woman philosophical exchange by the neighbour’s fourteen-year-old daughter. As for the grand emotions she interprets daily in the tarot cards, she steers clear of them herself, for Cary Grant alone could rescue her from her pragmatic passionless life. He goes, however, by the name of Schmidt and is a far cry from a fairy-tale prince.
Mareike Krügel takes a darkly comic look at Felicia and her family. Her dry wit elegantly maintains the balance between black humour and empathy.
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Rights soldEstonia - Pegasus
Italy - Meridiano Zero
Latvia - ABC Zvaigzne
Spain (Castilian World) - Lengua de Trapo
Taiwan (Chinese complex) - Unitas
paperback - Diana
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Reviews
»A new star has risen over reading Germany. (...) This marvelous novel has just everything, it is extremely well-written, in a confident and to-the-point language. Truly hilarious, with a hint of bittersweetness.«
buchkultur.de
»A special treat.«
BuchMarkt
»Krügel harmoniously captures the touching, comical, and sad moments of a childhood. (...) A serious subject, yet approached with ease, and coruscating, dry humour.«
Frankfurter Neue Presse
»Krügel, with her deadpan humor, keeps the balance between storyline and
insightfulness, between sentimentality and the tragicomic. DIE TOCHTER MEINES VATERS is an exceptional novel, lightly and unaffectedly describing the undesirable - yet unescapable - prosaicness of life.«
Kreuzer Leipzig
»A delightful off-key novel.«
Brigitte young miss
»One felicitous mixture of wit, humour and sound sobriety that has a lot to offer, presenting at the same time a never tiresome childhood novel, a coming-of-age story, and last but not least a touching father-daughter-relationship. Page by page, the intrigued reader follows the protagonist through past and present.«
titel magazin
»Pointed, pitch-black humor... disarmingly funny without at any time silting into triviality.«
Verdener Aller Zeitung
»A remarkable novel, about life and family.«
shmagazin
»Krügel fuses humor with the anticipation of the infathomable, the facts of life with the bizarre. Those magical moments of childhood give way to the messy world of the grown-up Felizia.«
Kieler Nachrichten
»An unorthodox coming-of-age-story (...), irresistible for its deadpan tone and black humor.«
Welt der Frau
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