Karolina Estor's life is tightly bounded by the shadows of her family: As the third child, she grows up in her 68er parents' doomed attempt to do everything differently than the generation before. While her father Klaus strives to give the children every freedom and yet binds them all the more closely to himself, her mother Elke betrays both the class struggle and the family bond and instead jets around the world obsessively for large corporations. Karolina, meanwhile, takes to heart her mother's guiding principle of not being allowed to be weak and consoles herself in competitive sports, until competitive pressure and the disappearance of her brother cause her to lose this support as well. With painful, laconic candor, Katharina Peter weaves patches of her protagonist's memories into a tapestry of German history, reconstructs hidden guilt using a family archive, and demands everything of her protagonist in the process, because: If she does not succeed in formulating her story and creating a meaning for herself, she will be lost in the darkness that is the family. Unsparing and courageous, terrifying and comforting, Peter's debut novel penetrates deep into history and exposes the foundations of our society.
Novel
Katharina Peter, born in 1980 in Bad Soden am Taunus, studied scenic writing at the writing at the University of the Arts Berlin. She lives as an author and dramaturge in Hanover. As a member of the board of the association Theatrum e. V. she conceives and realizes transdisciplinary projects at the interface interface of art and science. Narrative of Silence is her first first novel.
