An autobiographical narrative about Uwe Timm's friendship with Benno Ohnesorg. Benno Ohnesorg, who was shot during the anti-Shah demonstration in Berlin in 1967, was Uwe Timm's friend and companion when both were retaking their high school diploma in the early sixties. A reserved young man who paints and reads the works of French modernism, he also writes poetry. Together with him, Timm discovers Apollinaire and Beckett, Camus and Ionesco, and realizes that writing is not just a solitary act; one can discuss and improve texts. Uwe Timm recounts this violently ended friendship, the experiences of a generation, and the emergence of a writer.