Lovers of Franz K.

A thriller of love and revenge, and an imaginative literary obituary for Kafka, bringing the Cold War to life, from Paris and Istanbul to West Berlin and Tel Aviv.
 
“The novel vaults from interrogation to trial to poetic accounts of Ferdy’s youth, rendered in Samî Hêzil’s lyrical translation … Sönmez playfully expands Kafka’s world in a literary experiment that encourages readers to reimagine the unfinished work of their heroes” Financial Times
 
“The dialogue-led approach makes the book punchy and fast-moving, and brings some surprising twists before the end” Guardian
 
“Did Max Brod commit a crime by not fulfilling Kafka's last will – to burn all his works? Burhan Sönmez is not a judge. He is only a scribe at the Last Judgment, recording the speeches of the parties. And he does his job brilliantly” Mikhail Shishkin
 
“An inventive literary obituary for Kafka, perfect for both Kafka fans and lovers of historical literary page-turners in the vein of Anne Berest’s The Postcard and Colm Toibin’s The Magician” SA Examiner
 
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West Berlin, 1968. As a youth uprising sweeps over Europe in the shadow of the Cold War, two men face each other across an interrogation table. One, Ferdy Kaplan, has shot and killed a student. Kommissar Müller, the other is trying to find out why.
 
As his interrogation progresses, Kaplan's background is revealed piece by piece, including the love story between him and his childhood friend Amalya, their shared passion for Kafka, and the radical youth movement they joined. When it transpires that Kaplan's intended target was not the student but Max Brod, Franz Kafka's close friend and the executor of his literary estate, the interrogation of a murderer slowly transforms into a dialogue between a passionate admirer of Kafka's work, who is attempting to protect the author's final wish to have his manuscripts burned, and a police commissioner who is learning more about literature than he ever thought possible from a prisoner in his custody.
 
In this gripping, thought-provoking tribute to Kafka, Burhan Sönmez vividly recreates a key period of history in the 1960s, when the Berlin Wall divided Europe. More than a typical mystery, Lovers of Franz K. is an exploration of the value of books, and the issues of anti-Semitism, immigration, and violence that recur in Kafka's life and writings.
 
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“A homage to Franz Kafka, framed as the trial (of course) of Ferdy Kaplan … [Sönmez] queries how far one should go in the pursuit of what is important to us’ The Times
 
“The kind of book that will enthral a student and intrigue an Oxford don, thrill a worker on the factory floor and captivate a lifelong reader of Kafka” Lemn Sissay
 
“Did Max Brod commit a crime by not fulfilling Kafka's last will – to burn all his works? Burhan Sönmez is not a judge. He is only a scribe at the Last Judgment, recording the speeches of the parties. And he does his job brilliantly” Mikhail Shishkin
 
“A gripping tale of idealism colliding with history and moral uncertainty” Ava Homa, author of Daughters of Smoke and Fire
 
“PEN International president Sönmez wrestles with fraught questions of loyalty and legacy in this contemplative literary thriller … Sönmez’s sharp thematic layering and concise worldbuilding impress. This is a good bet for mystery readers seeking something off the beaten path” Publishers Weekly
 
Praise for Burhan Sönmez
 
“A writer of passion, memory and heart” Elif Shafak
 
“His novels delve into imprisonment and memory, with echoes of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Jorge Luis Borges” Jason Farago, New York Times
 
“One of the most exciting, innovative voices in Turkish and Kurdish literature today” Peter Dziedzic, Harvard Review