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Distributed for Haus Publishing

Barbarian Spring

Translated by Peter Lewis
On a business trip to Tunisia, Preising, a leading Swiss industrialist, is invited to spend the week with the daughter of a local gangster. He accompanies her to the wedding of two London city traders at a desert luxury resort that was once the site of an old Berber oasis. With the wedding party in full swing and the bride riding up the aisle on a camel, no one is aware that the global financial system stands on the brink of collapse. As the wedding guests nurse their hangovers, they learn that the British pound has depreciated tenfold, and their world begins to crumble around them.

So begins Barbarian Spring, the debut novel from Jonas Lüscher, a major emerging voice in European fiction. The timely and unusual novel centers on a culture clash between high finance and the value system of the Maghreb. Provocative and entertaining, Barbarian Spring is a refreshingly original and all-too-believable satire for our times.

192 pages | 5 x 7 3/4 | © 2014

Fiction


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Reviews

“A most humorous and convincing satire of the ridiculous excesses of those responsible for the financial crisis that began in 2008. That Lüscher’s plot could easily take place in 2015 makes the novel all the more engaging and relevant. Why, it prompts us to ask, do we never learn from our financial mistakes?”

New York Times

"Slim and sharp as a dagger. . . . Superbly translated."

Wall Street Journal

"This witty, delicately wrought novella exposes the kind of follies and excesses that could easily bring us to the brink of another disaster."

Sydney Morning Herald

“Equally hilarious and astute, Barbarian Spring brings to light the pitfalls of an existence fixated on wealth.”

World Literature Today

“Preising is a wonderful narrator who elegantly masters the art of digression.”

Die Zeit, on the German edition

“Lüscher’s fascinating novella plays out in the near future, yet describes the hubris of capitalism and economic collapse in a wonderfully old-fashioned manner without moralizing.”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, on the German edition

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