Diego Marani Bücher

Ein verwundeter Soldat, aus Raum und Zeit gerissen, versucht, seine Identität neu zu erlangen. Ein Arzt, ein Pastor und eine schöne, geheimnisvolle Krankenschwester bieten ihm Hilfe an, die sich als fatal erweist… Triest 1943: Auf einem vor Anker liegenden Lazarettschiff erwacht ein Schwerverwundeter nach tagelangem Koma, Gedächtnis und Sprache hat er verloren. Weil in seiner Jacke der Name „Sampo Karjalainen“ eingestickt ist, vermutet Doktor Friari, dass es sich um einen Finnen handelt, den die Kriegswirren hierher verschlagen haben. Der Doktor nimmt sich seiner an, bringt ihm mühsam ein paar Brocken Finnisch bei. Als Friaris Mission zu Ende geht, schickt er den Patienten per Schiff zu einem Arztkollegen nach Helsinki. Eine Reise, die den Patienten an ungeahnte Grenzen bringt… Sprache und Freundschaft, Heimat und Zugehörigkeit sind die Themen dieses preisgekrönten internationalen Bestsellers, der erstmals auf Deutsch erscheint.

A young man plunges into student life, in flight from an overbearing father, in search of an identity of his own making. He is like everyone else in his quest for a future he cannot yet understand. His experiences, often comic, always innocently human, are an exploration of the concept of boundaries. But in choosing to study in Trieste, a city of many-layered histories and ethnicities, a city of brilliant sunshine and ferocious gales, he finds that life, and love, throw him more questions than answers. It is a tale of Everyman, but more than that: in the hands of Diego Marani, author of the celebrated New Finnish Grammar, this wry and affecting novel leads the reader on a nostalgic and thought-provoking journey made wholly individual by its evocation of place - the celestial city of Trieste. 'I did not think that one could weep for a city. But at that time I did not know that cities are women, one can fall in love with them and never forget them.'

As a child, Ivan and his father worked as forced labourers in a mine in Siberia, the father having committed some minor offence against the regime. He is then murdered in front of his young son, after which Ivan - who is a Vostyak - is struck dumb. 20 years later the guards desert their posts and Ivan walks off free. The Last of the Vostyachs won two literary prizes in Italy.

Domingo Salazar is a Dominican monk and Vatican secret agent in a near future theocratic Italy ruled by the Vatican. A cell of dissidents is helping sufferers commit euthanasia. His job is to root out such non-believers and heretics.

The Interpreter follows on from New Finnish Grammar and The Last of the Vostyachs and forms a trilogy of novels on the theme of language and identity. The Interpreter is both a quest and a thriller, and at times a comic picaresque caper around Europe but also deals with with the profound issues of existence. An Interpreter at the UN in Geneva seems to be suffering from a mysterious illness when his translations become unintelligible and resemble no known language. He insists he is not ill and that he is on the verge of discovering the primordial language once spoken by all living creatures. His predicament is soon forgotten when he disappears and things can return to normal. The interpreter's boss starts to have problems in talking and seems to be speaking the same gibberish as the missing interpreter. He seeks help in a Sanatorium in Munich but reaches the conclusion he must talk to his missing colleague to understand what has happened to him and to have any hope of a cure. He follows the trail of the missing interpreter around Europe as his life undergoes profound changes and he is forced to confront the darker side of life.