My Brother’s Happiness

This lively and well-crafted novel explores the paradoxical and tragi-comic story of two brothers proving that just because you are well-adjusted, you can’t also be lost and being damaged doesn’t mean you can’t find happiness. Botho and Arno van Dijk decide to take one last trip to the Belgian town of Doel, where their grandparents lived and where they spent many summer and Christmas holidays during their youth and childhood. Arno’s future wife has come along for the ride as well. Their adventure starts out carefree, but soon old grudges rise to the surface and so many repressed feelings are stirred up that the foundations of the brothers’ lives and their relationship to each other are shaken to the core. It becomes clear that Arno is the more vulnerable brother and whatever happiness he has found with Anja will eventually be put in jeopardy. Botho is on his own search for Lenie, his childhood sweetheart. Although finding her doesn’t give him the peace of mind he was seeking. Melancholy and funny, intense and touching, My Brother’s Happiness is an irreverent romp through Belgium, Germany and Holland. Stefan Ferdinand Etgeton was born in 1988 and lives in Berlin. He studied economics in Cologne, Warsaw, Utrecht, and Berlin. In 2013 he received the Evangelical Literature Prize, and the 2014 MDR Literary Contest jury prize and audience prize, and the top prize at the 2016 Wuppertal Biennale of Literature. C.H.Beck also published his first novel rucksackkometen (backpack comets, 2015).