Christine Wunnicke didn’t name her thin, timid parakeet “Hansi” or “Bubi” – she called him “Klitz.” Decades later, she does justice to the cage bird who died so young. But does knowing one means knowing all of them? And do they know us, too? Or where does their ability to mimic human speech like no other animal come from – without lips and with a rock-hard beak? Plucked from primeval forests, transported along colonial trade routes, locked in golden cages and draped over pirates’ shoulders, trained to dance and speak – it’s easy to forget that these colorful, clever birds manage just fine without us in the wild.
In her portrait, which turns out just as dazzling, cheeky, and clever as the revered representatives of this order of birds, Christine Wunnicke approaches the eloquent exotic creature. She traces the circumstances that have shaped our relationship with them, recounts parrot fantasies revealed through the centuries in fantastical depictions of parrots – and our insatiable desire to be able to speak with other animals.
“What was it imitating? A human? Another bird? A sneeze? The rattling of sails at sea?”
Non-fiction
Christine Wunnicke, born in 1966, lives in Munich and Berlin. She writes novels, biographical works, and radio plays, and translates from English and Italian. Her books have received numerous awards, most recently the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize and the Jean-Paul Prize. Her last two novels, Die Dame mit der bemalten Hand (2020) and Wachs (2025), were shortlisted for the German Book Prize.
