Echtzeitalter

Echtzeitalter follows Till Kokorda through his school years at the Marianum, an elite day-boarding school in Vienna. He feels cut off from classmates who come from wealthier families and suffers under a despotic form teacher. He finds freedom online instead: an early interest in the computer game Age of Empires 2 grows into a passion and a possible career.

First love is among the novel’s other themes. The book has been described as both a coming-of-age and a boarding-school novel, and the school is modelled on the one Tonio Schachinger himself attended.