Hermann Selchow: Ahasuerus's Journey, Gebunden

Blurb

"You will go." With this simple sentence, "Ahasuerus's Journey" begins a voyage that leads not only through countries, but through centuries and through the uncomfortable questions we usually avoid. In Jerusalem, caught between Roman occupation and religious order, the shoemaker Ahasuerus clings to rules because, for him, order is the only antidote to chaos. But when he refuses water to a condemned man, his sense of security becomes a judgment, and a human being becomes a wanderer who never arrives.

What follows is an atmospheric, sweeping novel of a bygone era, full of intense scenes: Ahasuerus is "thrown" into a new age, experiences how "order" suddenly wears a uniform, how faith becomes a battle cry, how progress tastes of soot, and how modern campaigns use frames, images, and guilt to manipulate people. It becomes clear: the real theme is not walking, but seeing. And the question that runs through everything: "What does my certainty do to the other person?"

Hermann Selchow, already known for his nuanced philosophical texts, tells "Ahasuerus's Journey" with clear, compelling language and an eye for the moral cracks behind grand ideas. From the stages of a seemingly endless journey emerges a novel about fear and belonging, about ideology and responsibility, and about the inconspicuous decisions through which humanity is often revealed: whether one stops, whether one looks, whether one offers water to another.