Literature

Crickets, earthworms and other things

The publications of Tom Sommerlatte mentioned here are available in bookshops.

Oh Odessa – The longing remains

ISBN 978394926386-6

Tom W. H. A. Sommerlatte has his protagonist Jerry write a screenplay – the story of a love that spans generations, based on the life story of a Wiesbaden man who has never forgotten his old boyhood love. After the death of his wife, he sets out to find Antonie Yelakova, an “Eastern worker” who was deported by the Germans during World War II.

The theme is not only the historical background, but also “the disturbed relationship of a teenager with his grandfather, whose longing for his childhood sweetheart the grandson perceives as infidelity to his recently deceased grandmother.” Will grandfather Walter and grandson Michael manage to overcome their conflicting values?

As the two get to know each other anew on their journey to Odessa to visit Antonie Yelakova, they face the same life question despite different historical settings. Michael’s sister sums up the central question: “Can’t a person keep a love in memory and still live a happy life with someone else?” For in Odessa, Michael meets Karenina, a violin student, and becomes “the pressured protagonist who faces challenges that beset him like the sorcerer’s apprentice faces the ghosts.”

A showdown ensues, with Michael seeking his grandfather’s help in the face of his unrequited love, and both facing the first hostilities of the Russian war of aggression. A text that looks behind daily political and historical events while focusing on the people.