Book cover for Origin Unknown by Oliver Rohe

Origin Unknown

Oliver Rohe
2013 Released
99 Pages
2-3 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Dalkey Archive PressISBN 9781564789730
Translated by Lauren Messina

Oliver Rohe's first novel is a word-crazed monologue in the mind of a man named Selber flying back to his wartorn native country for the first time in years. Grappling with his fear of flying and increasingly possessed by reminiscences of his long-dead childhood friend Roman, the narrator begins to wonder if any of his thoughts, or the decisions he has made in his life, are truly his own. From meditations upon loss, violence, repetition, and individuality, to explicit homages to the works of Thomas Benhard, Without Origin is a remarkable and incisive debut.

Oliver Rohe

Oliver Rohe was born in 1972 of a German father and an Armenian mother from Lebanon. His many years abroad have left him with a certain taste for exile. As a student in Paris, he touched on a variety of disciplines (Law, Modern Languages, International Studies) before choosing journalism. In 2001-2002, he was the chief editor of the book section of the magazine Chronic'Art, where he meet Jerôme Schmidt, Maxime Berrée, and Benoît Maurer. They brought together various publishing houses, Editions imho, è(R)e, and Inculte, in order to create the eponymous bimonthly journal Inculte in September 2004. Oliver Rohe is also the author of Défaut d'origine (Allia, 2003).

Lauren Messina

Translated by

Oliver Rohe was born in 1972 to a German father and an Armenian mother from Lebanon. He is a novelist and critic, and a founding member of the literary review Inculte. His novel Vacant Lot was published in an English translation by Laird Hunt in 2010.

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