ONES TO WATCH John von Düffel Beste Jahre (The Best Years) DuMont, August 2007, 300 pp ISBN: 978-3-8321-8035-5 In this, his sixth novel since his breakthrough success in 1998, the incredibly gifted John von Düffel, who couples the careers of writer and actor, takes on the themes of role-playing (does one ever exist except as a role player?) and fertility, when the principal character, whose wife has undergone treatment so that they can have a child, does a related service to an old friend and jealous rival, a lawyer, who has recently re-entered his life. Combines the poetry of an imaginative and fluent style with the precision of good stage directions and the intelligence of a witty essayist. A talent waiting to take the stage here? Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2007