Der Verlorene

Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s story deals with a family who seem to have a perfectly normal life: after fleeing from the East Zone in the last year of the war they successfully build a new life for themselves in the years of the Economic Miracle. But in fact they can only think about one thing, which takes over their lives: the search for their oldest son Arnold, who went missing during the trek. “Arnold isn’t dead. He’s not hungry either”. The younger brother and first-person narrator is told by his parents one day: “Now I began to understand that Arnold, the undead brother, had the starring role in the family and had turned me into just a supporting actor.” In the boy’s imagination his parents’ greatest dream becomes his nightmare, that the lost brother might be found.
With laconic detachment but also with extraordinary humour, Treichel tells the story of the psychological effects of the search for the brother, of the emotional ups and downs and the subtle mechanisms which the parents and the son develop while dealing with this situation which weighs heavily on everyone.