Author Reading with Eva Menasse - "Alleinruhelage"

Following the great success of her bestselling novel "Dunkelblum", Eva Menasse's new novel "Alleinruhelage" will be published in August 2026.

After the end of her marriage, a woman suddenly finds herself alone with her weekend house. Once the place where she sought family idyll, it now becomes the setting for a fresh start.

Help arrives as if from nowhere - Alla and Bolek from Poland, two chain-smokers who can turn their hands to anything. The renovations and setbacks, burst pipes and the petty hostilities of neighbouring allotment gardeners stir up many memories and new insights. As a Viennese woman in a doubly foreign land, the narrator may notice the pitfalls of Germany's divided history more keenly than those around her. Then she decides to sell the beloved house, to break free once more from her "stable solitude".

Eva Menasse has written a layered novel about taking stock of a life - a sharp-witted reflection on belonging and estrangement, and on saying goodbye.

This event is part of the "Leseland Hessen" programme.