Happy Publication Day to SPUTNIK by Christian Berkel
30th May, 2025
Christian Berkel tells the novel of his childhood and youth in a rousing and touching way: a story about inner conflict, departure and cutting the cord – and incidentally a homage to literature, friendship and love.
On October 4, 1957, the first satellites reach Earth’s orbit and shortly afterwards, Sputnik is born in West Berlin. He grows up between the stories of Sala, his beloved mother who holds up her own pictures to reality, and the books of his father Otto. Early on, the world becomes a stage for him, everyone seems to play a role, and how else should one understand life?
As a teenager, he runs away to Paris: into the world of literature and to Annie, who taught him desire, love and jealousy. He returns to Germany right into the middle of the theatre world of the 70s, which was shaped by new beginnings. A wild time of experimentation begins, until Sputnik begins to suspect who he is, or at least who he could be.
In his third novel, Christian Berkel once again follows in the footsteps of his life, but even more than a look back, this story is the journey into a frighteningly changed present, in which we will never truly understand who we are without the past.
