Navid Kermani Kurzmitteilung (Brief Message) Ammann Verlag, February 2007, 160 pp ISBN: 978-3-250-60104-3 Dariusch, narrator and central figure of this probing and topical novel, is the second-generation child of Iranian immigrants in Germany, and on one level his life is fine. He lives comfortably in a flat in Cologne, spends a substantial part of the year in a holiday apartment in Cadaques in northern Catalonia, and is excellent at his job, which consists in organising ‘events’ for wealthy individuals and companies. But as his life unfolds, the reader gains insights into a fundamental flaw: his emotional distance and self-questioning, his inability to form mature relationships with women, and his complex feelings about his own roots. The sudden death of a young woman with whom Dariusch had shared only the briefest of encounters finally spins him out of kilter and makes him rethink his life in this love story that isn’t. The events take place against the backdrop of the London bombings of July 2005, which further emphasise the split between the narrator’s own inner self and the changes occurring in European attitudes after both that happening and the horrors of 9/11. The novel is laced with delicious black humour, including the use of modern communications (mobile, text, email) to enable Dariusch to maintain the distance he desires or access the intimacy of a moment. An intelligent, thought-provoking read from this respected Orientalist.