Mirko Bonné
Night No More

fiction

360pp (87,000 words)

• About the Author

English sample translation 1 (pdf)

English sample translation 2 (pdf)

French sample translation (pdf)


>> Shortlisted for the German Book Prize (Deutscher Buchpreis) 2013

>> Longlisted for the Wilhelm Raabe Prize 2013

Markus Lee is travelling to Normandy to draw old bridges, which played a vital role for the allied forces in the summer of 1944. His nephew Jesse is accompanying him to visit his best friend’s family taking care of an old beach hotel on the French coast. In the enchanted atmosphere of the L’Angleterre hotel the planned one- week stay turns into a months-long time out, which marks a turning point not only in the life of Markus Lee. NIE MEHR NACHT is an enrapturing road novel, a refined artist’s novel and a love story, taking the reader along the paths of Orpheus and Eurydice into the Underworld and back up again.

Rights sold

France - Editions du Typhon
paperback – S. Fischer

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Reviews

»Without this chronicle of sorrow the shortlist of the German Book Prize
would have been cruel and cold.«
DIE ZEIT

»Bonné delicately interweaves urgent memories of World War II with a very personal family history.«
DER SPIEGEL

»A light-footed novel of great depth. A stroke of luck.«
German Book Prize, The Jury

»NIE MEHR NACHT is the successful attempt to transfer a conventional literary motif into the present. (...) Not many contemporary novelists would dare embark on the kind of venture Mirko Bonné undertakes in his new novel.«
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Bonné writes about life, death and loss with a light and elegant touch.«
Süddeutsche Zeitung

»World history and family drama are intertwined elaborately and elegantly. Bonné's delicate explorations of soul and nature create a magical atmosphere.«
KulturSPIEGEL

»Bonné is a highly observant and shrewd narrator who never forgets the bigger picture even in the details.«
Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»There have been few books lately as meticulously concentrated as this, and few as determined to draw the reader right into its secret heart.«
Der Tagesspiegel

»One of the novel’s strengths lies in the carefully chosen and poetically portrayed sceneries where the protagonist can live his solitude.«
Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR)

»Markus Lee and Mirko Bonné (…) describe in retrospect, in a sharp-edged and clear-sighted manner, a serious depression and the helplessness of those who are forced to watch.«
Frankfurter Rundschau

»The bridge motif with his associations of connection and separation - right up to the destruction of a bridge for freedom’s sake - joins in a sequence of unpretentious yet apposite pictures, giving the novel profundity, vastness and quiet beauty. (...) Bonné creates a world of images in elegant sentences, without a word wasted. His style is serious and simple, not succumbing to today’s fun society.«
Frankfurter Neue Presse

»Mirko Bonné is just as well versed in the art of storytelling as he is in poetry.«
Hamburger Abendblatt

»NIE MEHR NACHT reads like the script of a feature film with marvelous character parts, lively dialogues and intriguing settings.«
Schwäbische Zeitung

»Bonné is an excellent observer, his language is detailed, exciting, and very poetic.«
RadioEins (RBB) – Book of the Week

»Personal and historical tragedy have rarely been paralleled as competently as in Mirko Bonnés new novel. In both narrative strands, the author proves himself as a gentle, quiet discoverer of repressed guilt and forgotten victims.«
Deutschlandradio Kultur

»Mirko Bonné is a born narrator. His novel leaves you aching for more.«
Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR 3)

»A pleasanty unobstrusive novel, quite rightly shortlisted for the German Book Prize.«
Nürnberger Zeitung

»The way Bonné tells about his protagonist's progressive melancholia is great art, never mawkish or destructive but always looking for truth.«
Die Rheinpfalz

Reviews from abroad:

»Bonné’s expert handling of the relationship between the adult narrator and his teenage nephew produces many wryly humorous moments. (...) Bonné’s novel approaches an extraordinary chapter of European history from a fresh and productive angle. In a perfectly pitched narrative laced with skilfully observed dialogue, Bonné brings to life an appealing cast of characters whose personal stories suggest new ways of looking at the D-Day landings.«
New Books in German

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