Long awaited: the new major novel by Ulla Hahn. Her life seems predetermined: children, kitchen, church. But Hilla dreams of escaping from the village by the Rhine. Nothing can extinguish the longing for freedom of spirit in the child of ordinary people. Unexpectedly, a new life presents itself to her: high school diploma, studies, her self-chosen future lies ahead. After "The Hidden Word," the poet and bestselling author Ulla Hahn has once again delivered an impressive epic that sensitively narrates the journey of growing up, awakening, and becoming human. Hilla laughs the freest laugh in the world. It is the first day after the Christmas holidays in January 1963; the teaching staff of the secondary school has decided to admit the seventeen-year-old into the ongoing school year. With this day, the eager child "from a proletarian background" finally begins the long-awaited new life, where simple truths await.