69 Hotelzimmer (69 hotel rooms)

A novel for all:

• who have ever spent a night in a hotel room,
• who have ten minutes until it’s time to board their connecting flight,
• who can’t find anything worth watching on any of the 496 channels,
• who like reading serial novels in newspapers and/or rereading their favorite books,
• chambermaids, who know everything about people in hotels,
• taxi drivers, who are everyday travelers with lots of breaks but who never know how long those breaks will last.

Michael Glawogger’s novel is about a “he” whose love of traveling takes him all over the world. A collection of keenly described episodes from the life of a curious observer who checks in to so many more or less interchangeable hotels, where he ends up meeting all sorts of different people.

“69 stories, why specifically 69?” she asked. “Because it’s a nice number,” he answered. “And because a lot of times in comedies the 69 becomes a 66 or 99 when the door slams and a number flips around. Or a 96 if both digits get knocked upside down.” And then, of course, just as many hotels omit the number 13, here too the thirteenth story has been left untold.

The novel was awarded the “Preis der deutschen Buchkunst” in 2015 for its outstanding beauty.

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