born in 1974, studied philosophy and literature at the University of Potsdam. Martin Lechner lives in Berlin. His debut novel ‘Kleine Kassa’ was longlisted for the 2014 German Book Prize and his collection of stories ‘Nach fünfhundertzwanzig Weltmeertagen’ was shortlisted for the 2017 Clemens Brentano Prize. ‘Der Irrweg’ (2021) was funded by the Berlin Senate. ‘Die Verwilderung’ (2025) is his third novel.
Marlies is out of luck: she’s got to spend the summer before her final year at school living with her confused grandmother, trying to coax her to leave her the house in her will. For ages now she’s also had this weird swelling in her left hand, which is refusing to go away. What begins as a coming-of-age story veers off into a tragi-comic novel about fear, shame, and learning to stand your ground. Because when Marlies realises that her finger is starting to grow a talon—which soon develops a monstrous life of its own—she begins searching frantically for a way to save herself, and things begin to spiral out of control. Martin Lechner unfolds this complex mystery so compellingly that we begin to worry for Marlies, a dangerous girl who may or may not be turning into a predator ...
Powerfully eloquent, funny and expressive, the novel tells of Lars, a school drop-out who evades military service in favour of community service in the workshops of a psychiatric hospital. There, Lars finds refuge from his mother, whose abusiveness is worse than that of any raging patient. This is also where Lars meets Hanna, a patient who swiftly gets him tangled up in all manner of delightful scuffles, but whose radical attitude soon takes on a threatening scale. Was it her who torched the workshop leader’s car? How long before the flames of their passion also devour Lars’ fragile attempts to find his place in the world? And can those who’ve gone astray ever find their way back to an orderly life?
Lechner's stories collide like waves. They pass on words, images, or moods, flow into one another and yet, remain self-contained. They are uncanny and high-spirited and tell us about desperate lakes and knees to fall in love with. They are about films we vaguely remember and brightly lit cities, silently bursting bubbles of blood and summers long brushed aside. They are all at home in a language where something new and unexpected awaits behind each turn. Lechner achieves this feat with humor, the absurd and sentences that give us a touch of the ungraspable.
Apprentice Georg Rohrs isn't the sharpest tool in the box. But he has a dream: he wants to be the elevator boy in a seaside hotel, wants to escape on the night train with his first love Marlies and escape the confinement of his life at home. When Georg happens upon a dead body and accidentally steals his boss's suitcase full of dirty cash, his life begins to unravel: within a single weekend Georg loses his job, his apartment, his parents, his friends, his money, his love and maybe a piece of his sanity – and yet, at the end of this neck-breaking tour-de-force, an unknown sense of freedom awaits him...
Martin Lechner's fast-paced debut novel is a whirlwind adventure where provincial comedy meets literary genius.
Nominated for the German Book Prize 2014 (Longlist)
