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The Fire
Rahel and Peter have been married for almost 30 years. They have settled into their lives, appreciate and respect each other, and have raised two children.
Quietly and imperceptibly at first, then with a loud bang, the love has taken its leave from their marriage. They embark on a summer vacation, intended to salvage what still remains between them, and to answer the question of how and with whom they want to spend their later years.
272 pages
2021
978-3-257-24682-7
»She writes clearly and without frills. Her language is never banal, but always artfully literary.«
»The author Daniela Krien should be celebrated for her novel The Fire, because there are really few other books that work so well on so many levels.«
»Daniela Krien’s The Fire achieves the masterstroke of touching upon the existential without flaunting it.«
»A book about daughters and mothers; families, their secrets; about intimacy - and how, despite decades together, we remain individuals - and foreign to one another.«
»This novel is an absolute treasure trove – filled to the brim with literary delights, and swiftly engrossing.«
»The seismograph lines register precisely the state of affairs, but they don’t want to be right.«
»The novel is a plea for not giving up. Neither on yourself, nor others.«
»There’s barely anything more beautiful, elegant or gripping than Krien’s writing.«
»Not one word too many.«
»Daniela Krien expertly links one episode to the next, lightly touching upon all the topics that she draws from the zeitgeist.«
»This being a Daniela Krien novel, the plot develops with summer-like ease; its intellectual depth is revealed almost incidentally.«
»It's pure pleasure to read Daniela Krien's novel.«
»Daniela Krien has Rahel dive down deeper with every passing day - into the fear of aging, to her failings as a mother, down to the depths of her family history.«
»How Krien transports her characters away from the world and lets the topics of the present seep in in half sentences, is reminiscent of her previous works.«
»With her new novel The Fire, the author from Leipzig once more proves her talent.«
»Once again, Krien proves herself to be a grand master of creating a delicately poetic, multi-perspective diagnosis of the times.«
»You can’t help but think about aging while reading this calm yet intensely readable novel.«
»A sensitive and, I would like to say, wise novel.«
»With The Fire, Daniela Krien has once again presented an uncannily precise study of how German middle-class adult normality can look.«
»This is a tender, quiet, beautifully written book; one which gives comfort.«
»After her bestseller Love in Case of Emergency, she was once again inspired to write a clever, sensitive novel that is precisely culled from life.«
»A magnificent book, the rebirth of an author believed lost.«
»What more can you ask of three weeks, than for them to free everyday life from the encrustations and conventions which jaded habits heap upon it?«
»And you can’t help but be amazed at how effortless the narration feels; sentences which are compelling, almost addictively lucid and subtly dramatic.«
»It's very simple, very delicate, very caring, very empathetic; and I like that very much.«
»In clear, unadorned and cliché-free language, The Fire unites the individual with the societal, and even the private with the political.«
»The author adeptly turns an unsparing gaze on the simple, the succinct, on that which is wordlessly endured in a marriage, and captures it within language.«