Journey through a Tragicomic Century

'... particularly peculiar, breath-taking and worth telling.' Alexander Solloch, NDR Kultur

* NDR Kultur *

'Francis Nenik tells [...] this man’s story from his birth in 1911 to his years in the KPD, in Nazi imprisonment, in the Wehrmacht, the new beginning, via sudden twists, crashes, departures. He has found a tone that corresponds to his hero’s defiant independence.' Süddeutsche Zeitung

* Süddeutsche Zeitung *

'With an inclination for the apparently tangential, precise research and a generous portion of linguistic confidence, Francis Nenik pulls off the trick of distilling a kind of micro-history of the absurd 20th century itself out of the life of a wrongly forgotten man.' Deutschlandfunk Büchermarkt

* Deutschlandfunk Büchermarkt *

'Nenik’s biography-as-novel is one of my highlights of the year. Unpretentious, it made me laugh, shake my head, pause to think. Journey through a Tragicomic Century is absolutely worth reading and recommending!' Sophie Weigand, Literaturen

* Literaturen *

' Nenik quickly draws in the reader with his writing style, interweaving short and long sentences in a pleasant rhythm – often linked with little punchlines.' Deutschlandfunk

* Deutschlandfunk *

'Nenik seems not only to be a researcher as obsessive as he is gifted, with the nose of a truffle hog. He can also write. And how. In his pleasantly dimensioned 192-pager, luscious elements of Anglophone historians’ narrative talent, including first-person perspective, are wedded with the picaresque novelist’s lust for imaginative style.' Sächsische Zeitung

* Sächsische Zeitung *

'[...] a vividly written slice of German history – which finds suitable form in this mixture of non-fiction and novel.' MDR Kultur

* MDR Kultur *

'A story like this is strikingly different [...]. For the almost forgotten [Hasso Grabner], Nenik forges a rediscovery he absolutely deserves. Precisely because he doesn’t fit in. Precisely that incongruity is what is worth telling, in the end.' Leipziger Internet Zeitung

* Leipziger Internet Zeitung *

'[...] history written as we have never read before, fast-paced, subjective and funny.' The Daily Frown

* The Daily Frown *

'Nenik builds a remarkable monument to Grabner, deceased in 1976, with his book.’ Leipziger Volkszeitung

* Leipziger Volkszeitung *

'Nenik sketches Grabner without psychologizing, as a man of boundless creative zeal and rare courage.' Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten

* Dresdner Neueste Nachricht