Draaideur

Asta, returning to a country where she no longer belongs from a nursing job in Nicaragua, is at Munich Airport, outside one of the revolving doors, smoking her duty-free cigarettes and reflecting on her life while she decides what to do next. As the story unfolds, we gradually learn more about who

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she is, but it also becomes clear that at least some of her memories are imaginary, and Asta even starts to wonder whether she might be a fictional character herself.

Lange-Müller uses Asta's nursing experience to reflect on why and how people help each other, and what unintended consequences this helping and not helping can have. In passing we touch on burkas, Che Guevara's East German colleague Tamara Bunke, sewing machines, Mother Teresa, North Korea, and a host of other minor topics. And we also get time to explore some of the weirder unintended features of the German language.

An interestingly offbeat little book, quite bitter and negative at times, but at others very worthwhile. And rather funny, in unexpected ways.

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