The Summers

Winner of the Mara-Cassens Literature Prize

“A sensitive story of being torn in two, of being caught in the middle.”
—MDR Kultur

The Summers narrates the coming of age of Leyla, who spends the school year in her mother’s home country of Germany but travels every summer to her father’s Kurdish village in Syria, near the Turkish border. There, with her grandparents and Yazidi friends, she comes alive. She knows the village’s smells and tastes; she knows the villagers’ stories. She knows where they keep their suitcases hidden, should they need to escape again.

As Leyla grows older, her sexual awakening takes a back seat to her cultural discoveries. She becomes increasingly disenchanted with her German classmates and friends’ indifference when ISIS troops enter the village, threatening the lives of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

Thoughtful and poignant, The Summers addresses issues of gender, sexuality, cultural difference, politics, and identity. Ronya Othmann draws readers into multiple worlds, ultimately revealing the hopes and dreams that bind us all together when forces threaten to tear us apart.

Literatura Estrangeira