New Year

Juli Zeh studied law in Passau and Leipzig, and holds a doctorate in international law from the University of Saarbruecken. She is one of Germany’s most successful authors of both literary thrillers and novels. Her debut novel Eagles and Angels was an international bestseller and was awarded the Deutscher Buecherpreis, and since then her books have been translated into 35 languages. She has been awarded myriad prizes for her work, including the Carl Amery Literature Prize, the Thomas Mann Prize, and the Order of Merit.

"In this wrenching psychological portrait from Zeh, a character’s buried traumatic past distorts his memory and loosens his grip on reality…The tale’s startling climax, which reveals the roots of Henning’s neuroses and the unreliability of his perspective, is perfectly executed, with the author adopting a child’s-eye view of past events that is colored by nostalgia and terrifying vulnerability. Zeh’s novel skillfully asks how a person can come to terms with a painful past that has been intentionally misremembered for the purpose of sustaining one’s mental health. Readers, though, will have no trouble remembering this."―Publishers Weekly, starred review; "This spine-tingler captures the peak of what appears to be a spectacularly hallucinatory middle-aged crisis."―Kirkus Reviews, starred review; “Because both the thriller and the analysis of society are here intertwined so densely, New Year is perhaps Juli Zeh’s best book to date.” ―Süddeutsche Zeitung; “New Year is an impressively original book whose elegant construction testifies to Zeh’s writerly prowess.” ―New Books in German; “Past experience is part of us, like a code in computer software―Zeh, in her usual straightforward way, has condensed this to make a compact novel.” ―Stern; “A thrilling, cinematic story.” ―VPRO Boeken; “With New Year, Juli Zeh has succeeded in writing a lost-memory thriller and at the same time an accurate psychogram of today’s overwhelmed fathers.” ―WDR 3; “With New Year, Juli Zeh shows that good entertainment can indeed be easily coupled with depth and literary quality. This psycho-thriller is thus well on its way to becoming a bestseller.” ―SRF 2 Kultur; “Juli Zeh has written not only an enthralling psychogram of a man, but also quite nearly a classical tragedy.” ―Südwest Presse; “This book develops into a rapid, exciting drama, the kind of which you might have never read before.” ―Der Kleinborsteler; “An intense and gripping psychological thriller. The second part of this novel, impressive in its mastery of narrative, will cost you some hours of sleep.” ―Midi Libre; “Once devoured, New Year obsesses its reader for days on end. Juli Zeh strikes hard and strikes home.” ―Transfuge; “An experience of psychological dissection. New Year is a vertiginous plunge into the psyche of a man straining under the weight of what he believes he must achieve and, in a subtle game of smoke and mirrors, into our own neuroses. With the tale of a mad ascent, the novel defuses, with the author’s characteristic scathing and elegant irony, the diktat of perfection and permanence extolled by the media that has invaded the sphere of social life and intimacy, and invites us to respond with a middle finger stuck up with pride.” ―Lire; “It is genuinely admirable how, page after page, Juli Zeh manages to develop a truly nerve-racking thriller. Ever changing register, she always starts with questions rising from the conditions of life in today’s society.” ―DNA; “In this harrowing thriller, Juli Zeh evokes children’s solitude, their panicked fears of abandonment, their incapacity to see their parents as anything but perfect.” ―Arts Libres; “Juli Zeh has rediscovered the somewhat lost art of the psychological thriller.” ―Libération; “In New Year, Juli Zeh invents a new type: the hysterical man. She could just as easily have written two separate books. A poignant sketch of modern narcissistic parents, and their roots in the past.” ―Trouw; Praise for Empty Hearts; “Empty Hearts has the veneer of a thriller but it’s more accurate to call it a chiller: chilling in the accuracy of its satire and chilling in its diagnosis of our modern malaise.” ―New York Times; “Darkly entertaining … A thoughtful political thriller with a provocative sense of humor.” ―Kirkus Reviews, *starred review*; “Will keep readers turning the pages … Zeh makes it easy to suspend disbelief in this cold-blooded and macabre future.” ―Publishers Weekly; “Empty Hearts explores interesting ideas about the price of failure to act against tyranny and the moral complicity of people who capitalize on a bad situation, or do nothing in the hopes that it will all go away.” ―Los Angeles Times; Praise for Decompression; “Zeh’s award-winning thriller climaxes with a scene of splendid drama.” ―The Guardian; “Deftly translated by John Cullen, Zeh plays with our expectations throughout … Like The Method, this is a story about obsession―this time with status, looks, and celebrity culture.” ―The Independent; “Erotic intrigue, deep-sea diving and clients from hell make for a lively mix―the gathering suspense is complemented by nuanced characterization in a pleasingly unpredictable work.” ―Kirkus Reviews; “A mesmerizing and disturbing psychological thriller ... Zeh’s talent pulls this morally murky tale up from the depths and toward a redeeming light.” ―Wall Street Journal; “A deft thriller.” ―Publishers Weekly;