The Luchterhand bestseller now in paperback. "A great European novel." (Joachim Dicks / NDR Kultur) Nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. The story of Central Europe has never been told like this before: an adventurous, tragicomic train journey through a vanished land. The first novel written in German by Jaroslav Rudiš. Winner of the Literature Houses Prize 2018 for Jaroslav Rudiš. "The award-worthiness of this remarkable novel is evident." (Ronald Pohl / Der Standard) "In this book, stories abound - if we read them, we might better understand what is no longer right today." (Felix Bayer / Literatur SPIEGEL) "Jaroslav Rudiš juggles words like a performer with two dozen balls, plates, and rings. Nothing falls. Everything seems very effortless." (Karin Grossmann / Sächsische Zeitung) "Too many stories, too much history, one can only get lost, there is no escape.".