Where the Coffee Cherries Shine

1953, in the German economic wonderland: A young woman from Ludwigshafen stands with her newlywed husband at the railing of the ocean liner that will take them from Hamburg to Colombia. He is expecting his first job as a geologist in the Andean city of Tunja, while she looks forward to her uncertain future as a “temporary emigrant” with equal parts joy and concern – separated from her protective extended family in her religious parents' home, having sacrificed her music studies and unfamiliar with Colombian culture and history. In Tunja, they are confronted with the often colonial attitudes of the Germans living abroad, who mostly remain silent about the past. While her husband conducts research in the field, the young German woman is busy furnishing her new home and finds connections as a chamber musician. She maintains her “bond with her homeland” in her letters on airmail paper, which express longing and self-assertion: collected in twelve folders. With these documents, fragments of stories, and photo albums, as well as on a trip to Tunja with two of her children, the narrator follows in the footsteps of her parents and grandparents a good seventy years later. A meticulously and sincerely crafted literary dialogue between the generations.

“In terms of language, this novel is simply a great aesthetic delight. In every line, one can sense the alert, trained mind of the multi-award-winning translator, who, as she carefully weighs up every word, delves ever deeper into her parents’ lives.” – Silke Arning, SWR