Germany, mid-1980s: A writer from Leipzig is allowed to leave the GDR for a year. Although the West remains foreign to him and his new partner separates from him again, he lets the date of his return pass. Without any real contact with his surroundings, neither with his old homeland nor with his new environment, he sinks into alcohol excesses and writing crises. Aimless and without solid ground beneath his feet, he wanders through a ghostly land - it is that of his soul, his life. An afterword by Julia Franck and unpublished material on the genesis of the novel complement this volume of the collected works.