SUNRISE

Patrick Roth tells the incredible story of Joseph of Nazareth as a doubter, of Joseph’s deep belief and his disobedience towards God. At the same time, »Sunrise« traces the possibilities of a new beginning.

Jerusalem in the year 70 AD; Roman troops threaten to break through the defensive walls. The siege of the holy city is the starting point of this powerfully pictorial novel which spans a full time spectrum, back to before the birth of Jesus. At the centre of events is Joseph, Mary’s husband, whom the gospels report to have taken a wife and child in response to orders received in his dreams. Patrick Roth creates for him a life full of tension, a drama between the human being and the numinous. »Where is the justice in it, how can I understand?« complains Joseph, faced with the unfathomable will of God. And how can he accept the ultimate sacrifice that is expected of him?
In sequences that are artfully interwoven, between dream and reality, the novel penetrates to experiential spaces where supposed certainties begin to break down.
Patrick Roth’s narrative art follows on from existential experiences and bears witness to an extraordinary power of language. An aesthetic experience.

Literature can ride on the back of the sublime, of pathos, as though it were a horse of stars – if it has the ability to do so. And Roth has this ability, like no other.
Hubert Winkels, Die Zeit

The Author
Patrick Roth, born in Freiburg/Breisgau in 1953, grew up in Karlsruhe. He studied in Paris and Freiburg (English, French, German). From 1975 he lived in Los Angeles (film direction and film production, acting, screenwriting), and has been based in California since then.
He has made short films and, since 1990, published novels, novellas, short stories, theatre and radio plays (including Riverside, Johnny Shines, Corpus Christi).
He has received the Rauriser Literature Prize, the Hugo Ball Prize and the Literature Prize awarded by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. He was also a Mainzer Stadtschreiber.
Mary’s husband, Joseph of Nazareth, is the hero of this novel; Patrick Roth creates a story for him.