Rayk Wieland
In this vibrant novel, Rayk Wieland combines an absurd and entirely contemporary plot with the story of the very last duel held in Germany and creates suspense that doesn’t ease until the very last page.
A woman between two men – that’s the stuff great opera was once made of. Back in the day when men used to duel each other with all the tricks in the book. You can’t expect that nowadays. But if it happens unexpectedly, then what?
The police think it’s a bad joke when the psychiatrist Oskar B. Markov seeks out the station at Alexanderplatz to press charges because someone challenged him to a duel. Berlin has not seen a duel in over a hundred years. Blowing each other’s heads off has become defunct as a cultural technique. But Markov won’t let himself get fobbed off and insists on an investigation. So begins an adventurous grotesque leading to an antiquarian who has evidently lost all grip on reality over reading too many books on duels. He interpreted his ex-girlfriend’s new relationship with the psychiatrist as a third-degree insult and to him, it’s clear: there must be a duel. But how does that work? And what were they like back in the day?
Rayk Wieland, born in 1965, studied Philosophy. He’s an author and editor for the newspaper, radio and television living in Leipzig and Mecklenburg. He’s published numerous articles and features in Titanic, taz, and ttt titel thesen temperamente.
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