Max Malterer

Max Malterer writes near-future fiction that feels close enough to touch — plausible worlds, emotionally charged characters, and moral dilemmas that follow you out of the pages.

He calls it Speculative Realism: realistic what-ifs, character first. Big ideas carried by lives under pressure. The kind of fiction that pulls you in on story alone, then quietly shifts something in the way you see the present. Books that make you feel as much as they make you think.

His second novel, Birthright, follows a young woman in 2096 whose country is voting to ban natural birth — and who finds herself at the center of it. His debut, The Human Relief Project, imagines a society freed from labor and asks what remains of purpose and dignity when work falls away.

He lives and writes in Berlin. Usually with strong coffee.