Tango for a Dog
Tango für einen Hund

sabrina janesch tango fuer einen hund
Aufbau Verlage
June 2014 / 301pp
Fiction

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review

Award-winning author Sabrina Janesch’s third novel is a bizarre and hilarious road-trip through the German wilderness, and is full of word-play and wit. 

Ernesto Schmitt is a precocious seventeen-year-old with a colourful life story. He spends his time fantasising that he lives in the Wild West rather than a small town in Northern- Germany. Ernesto has just left school and has received a preliminary letter of acceptance from a film academy. But instead of spending his summer researching and making short films featuring the girl he has a crush on, he is stuck working off 200 hours of community service – having taken the blame for an explosion at the local mill that was actually caused by the girl. 

Ernesto is visited unexpectedly by his long-lost uncle Alfonso from Argentina, who has a humongous Uruguayan sheepdog named Astor in tow. Alfonso dreams of entering Astor in an important dog show near Hamburg, nearly 200 miles away. Thus they set off on a farcical odyssey through the moors in a beat-up borrowed car, dodging the police (Ernesto is clearly violating the conditions of his parole) and encountering an initially threatening neo-Germanic tribe. 

Along the way, Ernesto learns the true story of his father’s youth in Argentina, and Alfonso discovers that he is not even German, as he had thought. Despite missing the dog show, Ernesto meets the girl of his dreams and manages to get his uncle to the airport in time for his flight back to Argentina. 

While by no means young adult literature, Tango for a Dog has a vibrant youthful feeling and may remind readers of Wolfgang Herrndorf’s Why We Took the Car. Instead of following the well-known teen road-trip plot, however, Janesch subverts the genre by turning the book into a chance for Ernesto to bond with his eccentric uncle and for two generations to discuss their shared past. 

Janesch received critical acclaim for her debut novel Katzenberge from none other than Günter Grass himself, and has already secured her place as one of the best writers of her generation. Her latest novel is a literary but infectious page-turner full of odd and sympathetic characters (as well as a dog sure to win you over), which will appeal to the young and wild at heart.

press quotes

‘Light and witty with a touch of profundity – a perfect summer novel.’– NDR Kultur

‘Janesch tells a fast-paced story full of amusement, entertainment and linguistic wit.’
– Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung

about the author

Sabrina Janesch was born in 1985 and studied creative writing, cultural journalism, and Polish studies. Her novel Katzenberge was awarded the Mara-Cassens-Preis for best debut novel, the Nicolas-Born- Fördererkreis and the Anna Seghers- Preis. In 2012, her second novel Ambra was published.

Previous works include:
Katzenberge (2010); Ambra (2012)

rights information

Aufbau Verlag GmbH & Co. KG
Prinzenstraße 85
10969 Berlin
Germany
Contact: Inka Ihmels, Foreign Rights
Tel: +49-30-28 394-123
Email: ihmels@aufbau-verlag.de
www.aufbau-verlag.de


Aufbau Verlag Besides focusing on German and international classics (Hans Fallada, Lion Feuchtwanger, Anna Seghers, Arnold Zweig, Victor Klemperer), exile and resistance literature and East German literature, Aufbau has a strong list of contemporary world literature. Recent major successes include Werner Bräunig’s Rummelplatz, novels by Fred Vargas, Donna Cross, Eliot Pattison, Deon Meyer, Hong Ying, Guillaume Musso, Robert Schneider, Giles Foden and Polina Daschkowa. The original Aufbau Verlag was founded in 1945 and became the leading cultural and literary publishing house in East Germany. Aufbau is an imprint of Aufbau Verlag GmbH & Co. KG.

translation assistance

Applications should be made to the Goethe-Institut.

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