Koala

What reasons are there for committing suicide? And what reasons for deciding to live?

Nothing about the story told in Lukas Bärfuss’s new novel seems normal. For the story culminates in an act of suicide, committed by the author’s brother. Even though statistics say that suicide is the second most frequent cause of death between the ages of twenty and forty, this does not help anyone to come to terms with it. The inevitable questions that arise simply cannot be answered in a way that gives consolation to those left behind.
Bärfuss tries to track down his brother’s fate, of which he knows very little. He encounters silence. Somehow the theme appears to be hidden behind a high wall; there is a huge taboo. And a secret. Why did his friends call him Koala? How did he get the name? And did it perhaps somehow influence his brother’s fate, does a person start behaving as his name suggests he ought?

»Lukas Bärfuss looks deep into the heart of darkness.«
Martin Halter, Tages-Anzeiger

Lukas Bärfuss was born in 1971 in Thun, Switzerland, one of the most successful German-speaking dramatists. His plays are staged all over the world. His extremely successful debut novel »Hundert Tage« (A Hundred Days) was nominated for the German and Swiss Book Prizes and translated into 17 languages. He received numerous prizes for his plays and his novel. Lukas Bärfuss lives in Zurich.