He, Roberto Calasso, is the Milanese publisher who gathers authors from all over the world in the Adelphi publishing house he runs, and is also an astutely erudite and linguistically elegant author. She, Anna Katharina Fröhlich, moves from Frankfurt to Mornaga on Lake Garda and finds herself as a young, adventurous woman between books and her garden on her way to becoming a successful writer. The two meet for the first time at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 1995. "A love story under the star of travel" begins – and a bond with books. Almost thirty years later, Anna Katharina Fröhlich looks back and tells of the bond between two people who together had the courage to embark on a completely unconventional adventure that promised to unite spirit and life – and lasted until 2021, the year of Roberto Calasso's death, who found his grave on the Venetian island of the dead, San Michele, next to his best friend, the poet Joseph Brodsky.
Anna Katharina Fröhlich's reminiscent narrative is both frivolous and discreet, humorous and intimate, but above all rich in thought. It vividly traces the portrait of a person and the core of the extensive oeuvre of a writer who took the liberty of ignoring all the conventions of the literary and academic world.
“Anna Katharina Fröhlich demonstrates a very unique and persistent literary power.” – FAZ
Biography
Sample translation
Simultanously published in Italian by Mondadori
Anna Katharina Fröhlich, born in 1971, grew up in Frankfurt am Main and Munich. She has published the novels Wilde Orangen, Kream Korner, Der schöne Gast and Rückkehr nach Samthar. Most recently, her novel The Yacht was published by Friedenauer Presse. She lives as a gardener and board member of the Italian publishing house Adelphi between Mornaga on Lake Garda and Milan.
