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Marlene Röder
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| Melvin, My Dog and the Russian Pickle |
| Melvin, mein Hund und die russischen Gurken |
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24,300 words / 147,200 signs |
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Content: |
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Marlene Röder interjects us into eighteen lives: the lives of eighteen young people who are at a turning point in their lives.
There is Ben, for example, who sits in a wheelchair, loves Chuck Norris jokes and decides to ride down a halfpipe in his wheelchair. Or Josephine, who likes ladybugs more than her own mother. Or Mareike, otherwise known as Germany's next sea cow, who is sick of her classmates picking on her because of her shape. Or Melvin, who is in love with Valeria and for her sake even tries "Russian Tequila": vodka with pickles. And readers will encounter some of the characters in another story here and there...
The author isn't afraid of serious topics, and addresses them with admirable ease. The same qualities that make her novels so exceptional are also evident in her short stories: lively, imaginative language without kitsch and sentimentality, and the courage to pose big questions and approach answers to them in a multi-faceted story. The book was highly praised in the major German weekly newspaper "Die Zeit": "The exciting thing about her stories is that they are constantly intertwoven: minor characters from one story reappear later as narrators. Stylistically, Marlene Röder is without doubt in a class with the great role models of the post-war period, such as Heinrich Böll or Gabriele Wohmann." |
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The Author: |
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Marlene Röder, born in 1984, has exceptional narrative talent. Her first novel, In the River, was awarded the Hans-im-Glück prize by the city of Limburg even before it was published. The major German weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" judged: "Stylistically, Marlene Röder is without doubt in a class with the great role models of the post-war period, such as Heinrich Böll or Gabriele Wohmann." |
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