Three days left before you will be let go. Dark memories and piercing doubts—and a clean break. And who is Marie?
Your red-haired colleague has been sitting at the desk behind you since you started working in this office. At first, you weren’t sure if it was her, the girl from the past, the girl from that one night your father forbid to mention ever again. But when your colleague asks you if you would like to accompany her to the Bang Bang, because only couples are admitted there, your whole world starts coming apart.
Blum’s style is sometimes thoughtful, sometimes full of humor, sometimes dark. Wofür wir uns schämen is a frank, warts-and-all account of a coming-to-terms with the past and the search for a real connection; it is poetic and lively and never forces definite answers on the reader.
„Tomas Blum has written the story of an encounter that for once has nothing to do with the love-and-euphoria lark of conventional literature. And he achieves what it’s all really about: to regain a sense of what is real about being alive.“ (Ralf Julke | Leipziger Internet Zeitung)
Tomas Blum, born 1968, worked in care for children with physical and mental disabilities for many years. After taking a degree in literature, he lived in Northern Ireland; there he started working on his first novel for which he was rewarded a scholarshop by Literarisches Colloquium Berlin. He worked at an actor’s agency to finance his postgraduate studies in media studies.
After taking his degree, he worked as a politics and economics writer and ghostwriter for twenty years. An accident made him return to literary writing. His play “Der Kuss” (“The Kiss”) premiered in 2016 in Berlin. “Wofür wir uns schämen” (“What We are Ashamed Of”) is his debut novel. Blum lives and works in Berlin.
Liesmich Verlag, founded in Leipzig in 2013, is an independent publisher focusing on fiction. In 2014, Liesmich brought out the bike courier novel “Pedalpilot Doppel-Zwo” (“Pedalling Pilot Double Two”) and in 2015, the road novel “Fayvel der Chinese. Aufzeichnungen eines wahnwitzigen Ganoven” (“Fayvel the Chinaman. Diary of a Lunatic Crook”). The dystopian novel “Cronos Cube”, published in 2017, was nominated for the Seraph Literatury Award for fantastic literature in the category “Bestes Debüt” (“Best Newcomer”).
In March 2019, “Konfetti im Bier” (“Confetti in Your Beer”) was published, Toni Gottschalk’s debut and the first German speaking novel about Ultras. The Deutsche Akademie für Fußball-Kultur (“German Academy of Football Culture”) nominated it as “Fußballbuch des Jahres 2019” (“Football Book of the Year 2019”).
Further information: www.tomas-blum.com and www.liesmich-verlag.de