´Coffee and Cigarettes´

Born in a family with a controversial Nazi past, Ferdinand von Schirach uses his everyday life legal professional experience in creating stories with a clear moral conflict and questionning. Through the state prosecutor´s decisions, often surprising, facing the sometimes horrific facts of the culprits, there are fragments of human knowledge shared with us.

Kaffee und Zigaretten - Coffee and Cigarettes -, to which I had access in audiobook format - are a collection of his short stories, and some theater play, and even an ´audio film´. Although not equal in their approach to topics, the insights into human motivations and resilience, as well as the moral/religious hollow that does sometimes surround our way of seeing or escaping everyday responsibility was for me the most important exercise in reading those fragments. 

It is a long, insightful read/or listening, which can be also used as an useful German learning and practice (C1 to C2 levels). For me, it was also a reminder that the contemporary German literature has so many unique topics and voices, which may not necessarily relate or resonate current topics of other international literature. Hence, it makes me grateful for my German language skills.

Rating: 3.5 stars