Bert ran away from everyone, but he could not escape himself.

"Bread and Games" was published in 1959 and tells the story of the successful long-distance runner Bert Buchner, who, despite having long passed the peak of his career, competes one last time for the European Championship and spectacularly fails against himself. As in "The Man in the Stream," Lenz also sets this novel in Hamburg, telling the story of a failure and providing a critical contribution to the aging individual in society. At the same time, Lenz, who was regarded as a good athlete himself, presents his only sports novel with "Bread and Games." In his work, Lenz sees sports primarily as a symbol of the perpetual struggle for existence, which is expressed in its purest form in running: here, the archaic forms of existence of pursuit and flight, of hunter and prey, are made painfully clear.