The Man with Two Eyes

Matthias Zschokke writes of seemingly everyday things, discovering their uniqueness, beauty, sadness and humour, and tells a discrete love story along the way.

The man with two eyes has a real aversion to anything out of the ordinary, even though, as a legal correspondent, you would expect him to be continually in search of the sensational. But for him normality is far more interesting, not boring at all: on the contrary, he finds it complicated, surprising and fascinating. Certain things may appear meaningless at first glance, but if they happen again, or when you examine them more closely, they turn out to be quite thrilling. Even monotony can suddenly seem funny.

In cafés, on the street, in encounters with strangers or acquaintances, whilst travelling or at home with the woman the man with two eyes met and fell in love with years ago at choir practice, at Rosaura’s, who introduces him to the strangest kinds of pleasure in her establishment, or at the zoo with Heidi the opossum – Zschokke is a master of turning things and events around so that they appear in a completely different light, making the commonplace appear quite amazing.



»Elegant, original and honest, sometimes saignant, sometimes à point, sometimes bien cuit, with a marinade of delicious irony and malicious humour. A multi-coloured treasure, a critical appraisal of our times by a poet who is in some ways outdated, but always abreast of the times.«
Susanne Gmür, Süddeutsche Zeitung, commenting on »Lieber Nils«

The Author
Matthias Zschokke, born in 1954 in Berne, grew up in Aargau and Berne and has lived in Berlin since 1980, where he works as an author and film-maker.
His debut novel »Max«, which appeared in 1982, was awarded the Robert Walser Prize. He has published numerous novels, plays, and feature films and received several renowned prizes including the Gerhart Hauptmann Prize, the Solothurner Literature Prize and the Prix Femina étranger for the novel »Maurice mit Huhn« (Maurice with Chicken).

Rights sold:
France: Editions Zoé
English-speaking world: Thames River Press