‘I have more privilege than any person in my family. And I’m still screwed.’ From award-winning author Olivia Wenzel comes a captivating and unsettling literary debut about race, politics, feminism, motherhood, nationality and enduring love.
A young woman attends a play about the Berlin Wall coming down and is the only Black person in the audience.
She is sitting with her boyfriend by a bathing lake and four neo-Nazis show up.
In New York, she witnesses Trump’s election victory in a strange hotel room and later awakes to panicked messages from friends.
Engaging in a witty question and answer with herself, the narrator looks at our rapidly changing times and tells the story of her family: her mother, who was a punk in East Germany and never had the freedom she dreamed of and her absent Angolan father. But in the background of everything is the memory of her twin brother, who died when they were nineteen.
Heart-rending, opinionated and wry, Olivia Wenzel’s remarkable debut novel is a clear-sighted investigation into origins and belonging, the roles society wants to force us into and why we need to resist them, and the freedoms and fears that being the odd one out brings.
‘So exuberant, inventive, brainy, sensitive and hilarious that it’s like a pyrotechnic flare illuminating the whole woman, past and present, radiant, unique, a voice and a novel to take with us into the future.’
FRANCISCO GOLDMAN, author of Monkey Boy
‘Bold and exceptional . . . Her impressive writing, born of a brilliant mind, surprises – stylistically, and by its frankness and associations . . . I rode in the passenger seat, beside the beauty and strangeness of 1000 Coils of Fear.‘
LYNNE TILLMAN, author of Men and Apparitions and Mothercare
‘An audacious and disturbing novel.’
MICHELLE DE KRETSER, author of Scary Monsters
‘An exciting, confident debut.’ Publishers Weekly
‘Impressive, relentless, tender.’ Faz
A young woman attends a play about the Berlin Wall coming down and is the only Black person in the audience.
She is sitting with her boyfriend by a bathing lake and four neo-Nazis show up.
In New York, she witnesses Trump’s election victory in a strange hotel room and later awakes to panicked messages from friends.
Engaging in a witty question and answer with herself, the narrator looks at our rapidly changing times and tells the story of her family: her mother, who was a punk in East Germany and never had the freedom she dreamed of and her absent Angolan father. But in the background of everything is the memory of her twin brother, who died when they were nineteen.
Heart-rending, opinionated and wry, Olivia Wenzel’s remarkable debut novel is a clear-sighted investigation into origins and belonging, the roles society wants to force us into and why we need to resist them, and the freedoms and fears that being the odd one out brings.
‘So exuberant, inventive, brainy, sensitive and hilarious that it’s like a pyrotechnic flare illuminating the whole woman, past and present, radiant, unique, a voice and a novel to take with us into the future.’
FRANCISCO GOLDMAN, author of Monkey Boy
‘Bold and exceptional . . . Her impressive writing, born of a brilliant mind, surprises – stylistically, and by its frankness and associations . . . I rode in the passenger seat, beside the beauty and strangeness of 1000 Coils of Fear.‘
LYNNE TILLMAN, author of Men and Apparitions and Mothercare
‘An audacious and disturbing novel.’
MICHELLE DE KRETSER, author of Scary Monsters
‘An exciting, confident debut.’ Publishers Weekly
‘Impressive, relentless, tender.’ Faz
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Reviews
Bold and exceptional . . . Her impressive writing, born of a brilliant mind, surprises - stylistically, and by its frankness and associations. An uncompromising consciousness leaps from sentence to sentence, city to city, in love, depressed, alienated, afraid, and contradictory . . . I rode in the passenger seat, beside the beauty and strangeness of 1000 Coils of Fear
A debut novel as layered and melodic as any symphony or opera.
A strong debut, a touching family story
An audacious and disturbing novel
Experimental in form, this is a demanding but absorbing novel on the themes of race, feminism, motherhood and love.
I was sucked in by Olivia's distinct style, biting yet swirling. In a bristling translation from Priscilla Layne, the cool, understated prose expresses so much of what goes unsaid about the weight of history, how you are perceived as you move through the world and the choices that come with deciding how you want to live.
German musician, performer, and playwright Wenzel makes an auspicious fiction debut . . . A prismatic novel, thoughtful and unsettling
Impressive, relentless, tender
Personal, political and wildly experimental
So exuberant, inventive, brainy, sensitive and hilarious that it's like a pyrotechnic flare illuminating the whole woman, past and present, radiant, unique, a voice and a novel to take with us into the future.
Wenzel debuts with a powerful portrait of a woman finding, losing, and rediscovering herself in 21st-century Germany . . . Her simple but affecting story is told through scattered memories and personal histories . . Captivating . . . An exciting, confident debut
Wenzel writes with humour and emotion about loneliness and finding joy in life within the roles society assigns you
Wenzel's unique literary voice carries the reader through meditations on origins, grief, racial identity, love, and belonging.
Wenzel's nuanced thoughts about injustice, marginalisation and the checking of privilege are timely and important, and the dashes of surreal, undercutting humour ... are refreshing ... [An] elegant translation ... cohesive, considered, emotive