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Raw Material
Jörg Fauser’s autobiographical masterpiece now in a new edition.
»That summer, drugs were cheaper than books, unless you wrote them yourself.«
Harry Gelb’s raw materials are opium on an Istanbul rooftop and LSD in a Berlin commune, heroin in a Göttingen garret and countless beers in the pubs of Frankfurt. Above all, however, his raw material is writing itself.
Fast-paced, brutally honest and funny, Fauser’s alter ego tells us of a dangerous and endangered youth and a man who never forgets – either as a night watchman or as an airport worker – what he wants to be: a writer.
With a foreword by Michael Köhlmeier, and an afterword by Matthias Penzel.
352 pages
2019
978-3-257-07034-7
»Bukowski meets Withnail on schnapps. As beautiful a mess as the characters he wrote, Jörg Fauser's trawl through the anarchist squats of the 70s lays bare the seeds of Germany's new cool. While we were still making war films, Fauser ran with a generation intent on destroying the state and itself; through the voice of Harry Gelb his savage wit leaves no truth unturned in describing its most foibled and hopeless endeavour - decadent revolution. This book makes me wish I was there. «
»Fauser drank more beer than Bukowski and shot more heroin than William Burroughs. Sad, funny, cynical and deeply authentic, it's the best novel of the period I've ever read.«
»One of the best German novels ever written.«
»Like nothing you've read before. [. . .] a crazed, leaping, unmoored and hilarious voyage.«
»Cracking - nothing more needs to be said.«
»... the master of West-German pulp. [...] [Raw Material is] one of the best German novels of the 20th century.«
»But the beat [...] goes on.«
»It is only after the author’s death that his importance was recognized.«
»Every chapter has such a fast pace, a punch line, and a psychologically clear view, that it is a pleasure to read.«
»This is about sex, about drugs, about a satire on Germany, in other words: absolutely compulsory reading in schools!«
»This author’s absence is noticeable.«
»As a mostly high as a kite writer, who struggles on as a removal man and night guard, he delivers an authentic image of the 68 generation.«
»An immensely entertaining read, as well as an excellent document of the times around 1968.«
»The ›Fauser sound‹ is suggestive and – because of the extreme setting – incredibly mood-enhancing.«
»Jörg Fauser depicts his characters with a precise gaze: laconic and full of wit.«