HEAVEN HAS NO FAVOURITES

In the early 1950s the race car driver Clerfayt meets and falls in love with the tuberculosis patient Lillian Dunkerque in a Swiss sanatorium. They leave the sanatorium to live in Paris, but without prospects: Lillian is deathly ill and Clerfayt, being a race car driver, is constantly in mortal danger. When Clerfayt plans to quit his racing career and establish a lasting bourgeois relationship with Lillian, she is plunged into a crisis. Her decision to leave him is preempted by Clerfayt’s death in an accident during a race in Monte Carlo. Lillian returns to the sanatorium and dies.

First published in 1959 in the magazine Kristall under the title Geborgtes Leben (Borrowed Life), the substantially revised book version Heaven Has No Favorites did not appear until 1961. Both versions are available internationally in translation.

Long neglected by the critical literature, this novel’s significance as a great love story with a detailed depiction of car racing in the 1950s has been recognized only recently.

Most importantly, the novel reflects the quintessence of Remarque’s philosophical convictions, because it sums up his most crucial questions: The hopeless confrontation of every human being with death, the unconditional duty and responsibility of every individual for his or her life choices, and love outside of social conventions as a possible way out of an otherwise senseless existence.