The Deserters by Mathias Enard #literature and the intimacy and distance

and the intimacy and distance between social classes

she unravels memories and long-buried feelings

Publication: 13 Nov 2025

This is storytelling at its very best from one of our greatest writers

balancing books

The Deserters by Mathias Enard #literature and the intimacy and distanceFleeing a nameless war, an unknown soldier emerges from deep within the Mediterranean scrubland, dirty and exhausted. A chance meeting forces him to rethink his journey, and the price he puts on a life. On 11 September 2001, aboard a small cruise ship on the River Havel near Berlin, a conference of scientists pays homage to the late East German mathematician Paul Heudeber, a Buchenwald survivor and steadfast antifascist who remained loyal to his side