SIMON URBAN & MELANIE AMANN

"German Glück" Book Launch

Simon Urban (author of “Zwischen Welten” co-written with Juli Zeh) presents his new book in conversation with Melanie Amann. “German Glück” is a highly topical, incisive social novel that could be Germany’s “The White Lotus”: Seven lives collide at a luxury resort in the German countryside.

A burning Tesla in rural Mecklenburg marks the starting point: Roger Ross, recently fired and without luggage, flees to the luxury resort “Eden” and radically reinvents himself. But the hotel is no refuge—rather, it’s a lavish final stop for the illusions of our time. For at “Eden,” this crumbling fortress of German prosperity, all the guests seem to be clinging to a life that is long gone: a TV comedian scorched by a social media firestorm, a tobacco executive who lost his wife to climate activism, a pair of twins living off their mother’s pension, and an executive assistant who wants to save the resort with the help of her diabolical plan. This community of shared fate is dancing on the edge of the abyss.

Bitterly scathing and wildly funny at the same time: a literary reckoning with the illusion of beauty, in which the German soul books a wellness retreat and goes mad.

“German Glück,” 400 pages, to be published on September 3, 2026, by Kiepenheuer & Witsch