Goldfish Memory

What does it mean to have a connection with someone? Everyday you see tens and hundreds of faces and overhear countless conversations. Everyday you pass people by - on the street. In the office. In the car. In cafes and bars. Down the corridors of department stores and hotel rooms. But what makes one person a stranger, and another a friend, an accomplice, even a lover? A traveler shuts himself up in his hotel room, with no-one but room service to talk to; a teenager stalks her long-lost father; a journalist interviews a great poet with a dark past; a woman pursues a doomed liaison with an anonymous man she meets once a month at the casino; a bar lady locked in with the regulars at night...These are just some of the tales exploring the mysterious and random side of human relationships. From the winner of the prestigious Robert Walser First Novel Award and Switzerland's Schiller Foundation Writers Prize, Goldfish Memory is the first translation of Monique Schwitter's form-breaking work. With a contemporary style that's cool, quick and funny, this collection is a refreshing new voice, not to be missed.

Monique Schwitter was born in 1972 in Zurich and now lives and works in Hamburg. Between 1993 and 1997 she studied acting and directing at the Mozarteum University of Dramatic Arts in Salzburg and went on to perform in Zurich, Frankfurt and Graz. In 2005 she published her first volume of short stories, Wenn's schneit beim Krokodil (When It Snows at the Crocodile's), for which she was awarded the 2006 Robert Walser Prize for the best literary debut of the year and the Förderpreis der Schweizer Schillerstiftung (2006). Her novel Ohren haben keine Lider (Ears have no Lids) was published in 2008, and her collection of short-stories Goldfischgedachtnis was awarded the Rotahornpreis in 2011.