We will sleep later

What are we going to do with this life now that we’ve already gone half the distance?

Zsuzsa Bánk’s new novel is a celebration of a great friendship between two women: The writer Márta lives with her husband and three young children in a large German city. Even though she loves her children more than anything else, she struggles every day to keep from drowning in her daily routine and to continue her work despite the challenges of her everyday life.

Her friend Johanna on the other hand, to whom she has been very close since their early childhood, is a teacher in the Black Forest and has no children. Instead of getting on with her doctoral dissertation, she battles the ghosts of her past: the man who deserted her, a serious illness she has only recently overcome, the father who died at an early age. Johanna and Márta keep in close touch through emails of great depth and candour. The correspondence comprises forthright reports on their lives and moving confessions; it re_ects their very long friendship and insatiable zest for life. Both women know that they want more. But what are they going to do now with this life, half of which they have already lived? And what is life going to do with them?