Return to Samthar

The small kingdom no longer exists, but a Maharaja still commands the fortress and the people of this forbidding landscape. During her stay, the first-person narrator finds herself caught up in an increasingly complex web of excourtiers, priests, wandering ascetics, relatives’ and servants of the king. Not to mention the mysterious figure who lays at the end of her bed every night and then disappears at dawn. One day, a couple arrives; it is the niece of the Maharaja, Ganga, and her husband. They are visitors from a very different India, one that is ruled by technology and high finance. From the very beginning, a special relationship between the narrator and the beautiful Ganga develops. Together, the two women come closer to uncovering the secret of this remote place. With a keen sense for the hidden laws of Indian life and culture, Anna Katharina Fröhlich reveals the essence of its people. Her novel presents the reader with a humorous and thoughtful perspective on a magical and complex world that is utterly unlike our own.

Sample translation available

Anna Katharina Fröhlich (born in 1971) lives on Lake Garda in Italy and has published the novels Wilde Orangen (Wild Oranges, 2004), Kream Korner (2010) and Der schöne Gast (The Beautiful Guest, 2014). She is the recipient of several awards, including the Literature Prize of the Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy. In 2011, Kream Korner was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize.