Winner of the 2017 German Crime Fiction Prize
Moses wants one thing: to get home, where his girlfriend and a cold beer are waiting for him. But his car breaks down on an empty street, not a single human being in sight. Moses slips into The Pines, a gated community, in hopes to find help from a university classmate who lives there. Over there, in the “white” world, everything seems calm, orderly, safe. But once inside, he feels like more of an outsider than ever. And he makes a terrible mistake.
Mistaken identities, racial profiling, and class politics form the backdrop of this intense thriller. The Wall tackles the issues of gun violence, racism, and exclusion in contemporary South Africa—problems that are equally relevant in the United States.
"Annas works like a film director, bombarding us with shot and counter-shot. The reader races to the explosion… an actual shootout. THE WALL is a fantastic, yet very funny, novel... Fast, hard and dangerous. A cheetah in book form." Die Welt (Germany)
"Fear and distrust of anyone who counts as 'the other.' [...]…jam-packed with action, thrills and suspense. A brilliant success!" Deutschlandradio Kultur (Germany)
"Ducking, hiding, running - these are what drive the novel's dynamics, its minute-by-minute choreography. Instincts dictate behaviors. In this case: prejudice, aversions, and racism." Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)
Before writing novels, Max Annas worked as a journalist. A renowned film critic, his first novel, The Farm, is currently under film production in South Africa.
Max Annas is the author of fictional and non-fictional books. Before writing novels he was working as a journalist and published on food production, right wing youth culture and philosophy. He worked for film festivals and organized screenings in Germany, South Africa and Mozambique. Research on South African Jazz at the University of Fort Hare (East London, South Africa). Novels: Die Farm (2014), Die Mauer (2016), Illegal (2017) and Finsterwalde (2018).
With degrees in art history and historic preservation, Rachel Hildebrandt worked as a historical consultant and academic editor before transitioning to literary translation. A recipient of several translation grants from both the Goethe Institut and the Austrian Ministry of Culture, she has published both fiction and nonfiction works in translation, including Herr Faustini Takes a Trip by Wolfgang Hermann (KBR Media), Collision by Merle Kroeger (Unnamed Press), Fade to Black by Zoe Beck (Weyward Sisters Press), and The Happiness Bureau by Andreas Izquierdo (Owl Canyon Press). Her translations have appeared in journals such as Europe Now, Anomaly and Trafika Europe. Rachel is also the founder of Weyward Sisters Publishing, which focuses on bringing contemporary works of crime and noir fiction by women authors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland to English readers.
