Jakob Arjouni Hausaufgaben (Homework) Diogenes Verlag, September 2004. 192 pp. ISBN 3-257-06442-X Things don’t look good for Joachim Linde, though he would be the last to admit it. Married and with two teenage children, he has been teaching at the local grammar school for the past twenty years. Of course it is not his fault that his wife is on anti-depressants, his daughter has tried to commit suicide, and his son has a problem with girls. And why he was never promoted to headmaster he cannot understand. Linde had worked out that afternoon’s lesson – a brief discussion of the Third Reich and its effects on presentday Germany, followed by a coursework assignment. But his plans for an early getaway are thwarted by the behaviour of his pupils, who refuse to accept his glib and complacent arguments. Insults fly, one pupil threatens another with the gas chamber, while another rants on about Israel and Palestine. Linde, reluctantly dragged into the debate, finds himself accused of anti-Semitism. Now he will have some homework of his own to do if he wants to cover his back. But that is only the beginning of his problems. Within the next few days his daughter definitively breaks with the family, his son ends up in a coma and his wife emails his colleagues accusing her husband of chasing after girls, their own daughter included. Linde is astonished. How could he be responsible for causing such a mess? But as he is called on to account for himself, will he take the blame or refuse to face the truth? Homework takes a satirical look at the question of responsibility, both personal and historical, and places the story of one man’s guilt in the wider context of a nation’s. Narrating events from the perspective of a self-deluding teacher, it shows how Linde revises history in his favour, no matter how damning the facts. The gap between reality and perception provides moments of high comedy, but it also has its more serious side. Arjouni’s latest novel combines all his usual ingredients – convincing writing, revealing character sketches, situational comedy and polemical twists.