Sand

Herrndorf, Wolfgang

ISBN 10: 3499258641 ISBN 13: 9783499258640

Publisher: Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 2013

Synopsis

Somewhere in the North African desert, a man with no memory tries to evade his armed pursuers. Who are they? What do they want from him? If he could just recall his own identity he might have a chance of working it out.

Elsewhere, four westerners are murdered in a hippy commune and a suitcase full of worthless currency goes missing. Enter a pair of very unenthusiastic detectives, a paranoid spy whose sanity has baked away in the sun, and a beautiful blonde American with a talent for being underestimated.

Sand is a gripping thriller - part Pynchon, part Le Carré, part Coen brothers - an unsettling, caustically funny tale of pursuit and madness.

About this title

Review:

'So dazzling and original.. a masterpiece... culminating in one of the greatest twists I've read' -- Daily Telegraph

'Brilliant, anarchic, darkly comic... outrageous, clever... a bravura performance... the publishers have already referenced the Coen Brothers, and to that endorsement add Quentin Tarantino' -- Irish Times

'Herrndorf... writes with an arresting cinematic vividness, and there is more than a whiff of Coen brothers' mayhem about the plot' -- Sunday Times

'A careful subversion of the crime thriller genre... Sand is self-assured in its aim and delivery: an emphatic statement of intent' -- TLS

'Herrndorf's enjoyment as he plays with our expectations is almost palpable' -- Glasgow Herald

'Every element of his story is woven together masterfully, with grain upon grain of detail added to a landscape that never stops shifting underfoot. It's part Pynchon, part Beckett, a crime story told by Lewis Carroll in a particularly nihilistic mood' -- Spectator

'German literary thriller that wears its intellectual creed boldly. Surreal comedy hangs a hallucinogenic pall over the reality of post-colonial North Africa in 1972, creating a confusing atmosphere around the central plot strand: who really killed the hippies int he desert commune?' -- Sunday Times Crime Club

'A hit in Germany... part Coen Bros, part John Le Carré' -- Sunday Star

'Undoubted literary merit... sustains uncertainty until the final pages, both for the reader as well as for the protagonist' -- Crime Review

'[Wolfgang Herrndorf] wrote an earlier book, translated in English as Why We Took the Car, but Sand will be his last. It alone ought to assure him a place in twenty-first century literary history: it's bold, anarchic, blackly funny, and completely unafraid' -- Elle Thinks (blog)

'Herrndorf has crafted something special here... the enigmatic Sand is the literary equivalent of a cactus: beautifully detailed, hard to get a grip on but sure to survive amid desolation and stand out sharply on a flat, monotone landscape where others sink into the dust' --Hits the Fan (blog)

About the Author:

Born in 1965, Wolfgang Herrndorf waited until 2010 to make his literary breakthrough with Why We Took the Car, which has sold more than two million copies in Germany, has been translated into thirty-four languages, and was made into a feature film. By this time he was already suffering from an incurable brain tumour. He continued to write for the next few years, completing Sand, which won the 2012 Leipzig Book Fair prize. When he died in 2013 he was recognized as a unique and brilliant literary talent.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowohlt Taschenbuch
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 3499258641
• ISBN 13: 9783499258640
• Binding: Pocket Book
• Number of pages: 474