Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2023, Paradise Garden is a spellbinding journey and a deeply affecting story of class, resilience and belonging.
The beginning was the last day before the summer holidays. The beginning was a song on the radio. The beginning was big plans.
Fourteen-year-old Billie rarely crosses the boundaries of her high-rise housing estate. By the end of the month their money just about stretches to pasta with ketchup, but her mother, Marika, lights up Billie's world with her imagination and big heart.
One day they receive an unwelcome visit from her Hungarian grandmother, and Billie loses much more than the colourful everyday life she shared with her mother. No longer able to ask Marika questions, Billie sets off alone in their old Nissan determined to meet the father she never knew and find out why she keeps dreaming about the sea, even though she's never been there.
Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2023, Paradise Garden is a spellbinding journey and a deeply affecting story of class, resilience and belonging.
'Elena Fischer writes so lovingly about sadness that it is comforting.' Alina Bronsky
'An accomplished debut about the courage to get to know one's own origins and to accept them as they are.' Ursula Nowak for Deutschlandfunk, Cologne
'This novel is a small miracle and a big surprise.' Claudio Armbuster / ZDF, Mainz
Elena Fischer studied comparative literature and film in Mainz, where she lives with her family. In 2019 and 2020, she participated in the Darmstadt Text Workshop, led by Kurt Drawert. In 2021 she was a finalist at the 29th Open Mike with an extract from her debut novel Paradise Garden and won the Mainz provincial government's prize for young authors.
Elena Fischer has been nominated for the German Book Prize and for the Harbour Front Literary Festival's Debut Prize 2023.
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