Siebzehn Dinge (Seventeen Things)

Eleonore Frey conjures up the world of a seventeen-year-old girl. It is an insecure, perilous, small yet complete world portrayed with sympathy from a distant, slightly ironic angle.

Nina (»I am a boy. I am a girl. I don’t know what I am. I cannot make up my mind. But since I’m both of them I am in an awkward position.«), Nina has a backpack full of paraphernalia she keeps carrying about, seventeen pieces altogether – a mouth organ among them, a water bottle, a lipstick and a walkman. That makes seventeen stories, at least seventeen convergences towards a person, seventeen sketches, at least, attempting to get hold of this character, to get behind her and/or his very history. In her subtile prose that defies imitation and avoids any definition, Eleonore Frey conjures up the world of a seventeen-year-old girl. It is an insecure, perilous, small yet complete world portrayed with sympathy from a distant, slightly ironic angle.