Die Habenichtse

Set mainly between 2001 and 2003 in Berlin and London, the novel brings together people from very different social worlds. Isabelle and Jakob are a well-off young German couple still looking for direction and for closeness with each other. In London they live near a struggling family whose children, Dave and Sara, are left largely to themselves, and near Jim, a volatile 28-year-old from a milieu of drugs and crime who dreams of an ordinary life. The attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 is the reference point for the various strands and the trigger for Jakob and Isabelle’s story.