Gert Loschütz
Revisiting a Tragedy

fiction, new

336 pp. (69,000 words)

• English sample translation (PDF – 0,1 MB)
• About the Author

>> A story about the worst train accident in German history and some mysterious passengers
>> Reads like a crime novel

In December 1939 the biggest train accident ever witnessed on German soil occurs near Genthin station. Two trains collide at full speed, with many deaths and casualties. On board one of the trains is Carla, who survives with serious injuries.
Carla is engaged to Richard, a Jew from the city of Neuss, yet her travelling companion is not Richard but the Italian Giuseppe Buonomo, who is killed in the crash. Lisa, a sales assistant at the Magnus department store, is sent out to take clothes to the injured woman, who has lost everything in the disaster. But Carla is already posing as Mrs Buonomo – does she have something to hide?
Many years later, Lisa’s son, Thomas Vandersee, hears about this mysterious incident, and his mother reveals her own tale of love and misfortune in parallel. Will he be able to figure out Carla’s secret? Might it somehow be a linked to his own family?
Inspired by a real-life disaster, the novelist Gerd Loschütz weaves a magnificent, unsettling story of love and betrayal.

Rights sold

English World – Seagull
French - Actes Sud
Bulgarian - Black Flamingo Publishing

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Reviews

»No other author writing in German is such a master of the Modianoesque melancholy tone of an investigator of the past as the Genthin-born Loschütz.«
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Gerd Loschütz’s prose is urgent and occasionally poetic (…) reminiscent, at times, of Uwe Johnson.«
Tagesspiegel

»Fate, guilt, love and living a lie are the themes of this masterful novel.«
Deutschlandfunk Kultur

»This tragedy actually happened, and his depiction of the different characters and their lives (…) is a real pleasure to read and gripping too.«
rbbkultur

»In Revisiting a Tragedy, Loschütz succeeds in creating an authentic picture of Germany during the first months of the war, a time that is rarely a priority in historical discourse.«
Modelleisenbahner

»His novels and plays possess an urgent immediacy. Alternating between light and dark, they draw readers in and won’t let them go again.«
Ulrich Sonnenschein, hr2 Doppelkopf

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