"1999 Meter über dem Meer"

Reading - presented by Thalia

A young woman wants to leave everything behind - at any cost. Via Bali and Berlin she ends up in St. Moritz, the perfect place for impostors and social climbers: "1999 Meter über dem Meer". With her hair dyed a blazing orange, she moves among the rich and beautiful, passing herself off as an artist - and it works surprisingly well, if not for a handsome man with ice-blue eyes.

At the Harbour Front Literaturfestival 2025, Caroline Wahl won over the audience completely: during the NDR podcast "Eat Read Sleep" at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, the entire hall gave her a standing ovation, and tickets for her reading the next day at "Uebel und Gefährlich" sold out instantly. Now she returns to the festival with her new novel, presenting "1999 Meter über dem Meer" to a Hamburg audience for the first time.

Caroline Wahl, born in 1995 in Mainz and raised near Heidelberg, studied German language and literature in Tübingen and Berlin. Her debut novel "22 Bahnen" was a remarkable success in 2023 - the book won multiple awards and was adapted for the screen. "Windstärke 17" and "Die Assistentin" followed; with three million copies sold across three years, she is now one of the most widely read voices in young contemporary German-language literature. "1999 Meter über dem Meer" is her fourth novel.

"The author makes it abundantly clear: she is a young woman and she has everything in her hands. That is her message." - Süddeutsche Zeitung