Nowhere Heart Land

A brilliant and compelling début

When will I finally know what I want?

“This week I’ll be thirty, older than Conny will ever be, and apart from that I’ve achieved nothing at all. The world is spinning around me; it must be the smoke, hunger, time. I put out the cigarette and curl up on the sofa again. I go on leafing through my calendars and school exercise books in search of her. I tear out a whole page for a line from a song, and pin it up on the wall with the pictures: I wish you knew when I said two sugars, actually I meant three.”

A young woman wakes up in her hometown in the German provinces with a black eye. Rosa has always wanted to be far away from here, but now, after many years in London, she’s back – and she’s haunted by confusing memories of her youth at a humanist boarding school, of her mother Conny, who died young, and of old friends who no longer speak to her. Torn between nostalgia and reality, Rosa seeks the truth among old stories. Vividly and with a humorous lightness of touch, Emily Marie Lara tells the story of a young woman who resists growing up with all her might, and who nevertheless, in the course of that resistance, ends up finding herself.

A compelling book about the deceptive power of memory and the liberating power of truth

Emily Marie Lara writes about the best and worst aspects of growing up

English sample translation available

Tropes: #Coming of Age  #Complex Female Friendship  #Classism #Memories  #School Days  #Different Life Plans