When the first week-long power blackout worldwide occurs in 2025, there is, contrary to expectations, no panic. And even when power grids and supply chains, money flows and the internet finally collapse, it does not mean the end of civilisation. Instead, the people in Luise Meier's multi-faceted novel Hyphae begin a search, born out of necessity, for other, even non-human, ways of relating to each other that enable them to survive and care for each other. There is Anne, for example, who tries to keep the hospital running, her fifteen-year-old son Tomasz, who suddenly learns to see the power of nature, or Maja, who keeps a record of all this for the ever-growing encyclopedia that spans the globe.
Like mushroom threads, Luise Meier lays out biographies, experiences, dreams and wishes, interweaves them with unrealised futures and reveals: the world is not coming to an end – rather, it is emerging anew, in radical, all-encompassing connectedness.
As if Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Donna Haraway and David Graeber had created a utopia together
Novel
Sample translation
English sample available
Luise Meier was born in 1985 in East Berlin. She studied philosophy, social and cultural anthropology and cultural studies in Berlin, Frankfurt (Oder) and Aarhus and writes both fiction and non-fiction. Previously published by Matthes & Seitz Berlin: Marx Machine (2018).
