The World at My Back

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

• Contemporary issues: an immersive, no-holds-barred memoir of severe mental illness. Compare with Esme Weijun Wangs The Collected Schizophrenias, Susannah Calahans Brain on Fire, Mary Karrs Lit. Melle is a translator, and the influence of his work on Cormac McCarthy is evident in his forthrightness and brutal honesty.
• The first autofiction/memoir of its kind in Germany, The World at My Back was a runaway bestseller and has sold nearly 100k copies to date. First published in 2016, foreign rights have since sold in eighteen languages.
• Award-winning author: Melle has been thrice shortlisted for the German Book Prize and won the Franz Hessel Prize, the Berlin Art Prize, and the Klopstock Prize. He studied comparative literature and philosophy at the University of Texas.

Reviews

Praise for The World at My Back

"Books written out of great emotional distress are often embarrassing. They are rarely great literature. Thomas Melle's book is great literature because he pulls it off without a single false note."
Deutschlandfunk (German National Radio)

"Haunting insights into a bipolar identity as seen from the inside Precisely because it is not a question of fictioneven if there is much talk of literature, even of a 'failed novel of education'but of a poetic of the authentic, The World at My Back is an impressive document."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"The author of the book is Thomas Melle, his book is called The World at My Back, and it tells of a much greater conflict and a much greater shame than you, as a reader, will probably ever feel ... Manic-depressive disorder is the tragedy of Thomas Melles life. That we can read about it in this book in this way is a wrenching literary event."
Die Zeit

"The World at My Back is a book that shakes and disturbs, one that wakes the reader with a punch in the skull, as Franz Kafka wrote ... Melle's text is unique because the author manages to draw you into the action and, as far as possible, give you a realistic impression of the illness In spite of the desperation and darkness of the subject, you can hardly help but smile at the absurditieseven as they immediately stick in your throat. Added to this is Melle's lively storytelling style, which alone lifts the book well above the wide selection of memoirs of illness."
Literaturkritik

Author Bio

Born in Bonn, Germany, Thomas Melle studied at the University of Tbingen, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Free University of Berlin. His novels Sickster and 3000 Euros were finalists for German Book Prize in 2011 and 2014 respectively. Melle is also a prolific playwright and translator. His translations from English to German have ranged from plays by William Shakespeare to novels by William T. Vollmann. The World at My Back, also a finalist for the German Book Prize, was a bestseller in Germany. It was made into a highly successful stage play, and has been translated into eighteen languages. Thomas Melle lives in Berlin.

Luise von Flotow teaches translation studies at the University of Ottawa School of Translation and Interpretation. Her recent translations include, from German, They Divided the Sky by Christa Wolf, and Everyone Talks About the Weather...We Dont by Ulrike Meinhof; and, from French, The Four Roads Hotel by France Thoret. She has twice been a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Literary Translation.