Whereas a lot continues to be unknown surrounding the death of 58-year-old German author Alexandra Fröhlich, the case already options numerous intriguing parts typical of a best-selling crime novel.
Fröhlich was discovered useless on April 22, on a houseboat moored alongside the Holzhafenufer in Hamburg‘s Moorfleet district, the place she was dwelling.
Police have since confirmed that “blunt power trauma” led to her demise; they’re treating the case as a murder. No suspects have been publicly named but.
Marriage to a Russian impressed first novels
In her first novels, Fröhlich drew on her failed marriage to a Russian.
Her breakout debut, “Meine russische Schwiegermutter und andere Katastrophen” (My Russian Mom-in-Legislation and Different Catastrophes), was printed in 2012 by Knaur.
The semi-autobiographic comedy tells the story of a realistic German lawyer, Paula, who falls in love with a Russian man. She is swiftly pulled into the unpredictable world of his overbearing mom.
Within the guide, Fröhlich humorously tackled stereotypes and cultural clashes characterizing her cross-border household experiences.
The novel bought over 50,000 copies in Germany, touchdown on the Der Spiegel bestseller checklist, the German equal of the New York Occasions checklist of best-selling works. A French version, “Ma belle-mère russe et autres catastrophes,” was launched in 2015.
In 2014, Fröhlich printed a sequel, “Reisen mit Russen” (Travels with Russians), during which Paula journeys to Kyiv to reconcile together with her estranged husband, Artjom, solely to find he has mysteriously disappeared. Paula then units off to search out him.
The novel has been described as a humorous work that’s half highway journey and half meditation on dislocation and id. Like its predecessor, the novel drew closely on Fröhlich’s private expertise as the previous spouse of a Russian man.
‘Demise was her enterprise’
Together with her third guide, “Gestorben wird immer” (There’s Awlays Somebody Dying), printed in 2016 in by Penguin Verlag, Fröhlich provided a household saga wrapped in a criminal offense novel.
The story facilities on 91-year-old Agnes Weisgut, the matriarch of a Hamburg-based stonemasonry enterprise. “Demise was Agnes’ enterprise,” states the blurb of the guide. The getting old lady decides to make a full confession of her life’s secrets and techniques earlier than dying.
Whereas the guide offers with the traumas of the war generation in East Prussia, it was additionally praised for its “quirky humor.”
Following the publication of that guide. Fröhlich stated in an interview together with her writer that household tales had been all the time a captivating supply of inspiration for her — particularly these which might be “splendidly dysfunctional.” She additionally famous that she aimed to discover in that novel the so-called transgenerational transmission of trauma, or how “unstated household secrets and techniques are handed down from technology to technology and affect the lives of kids and grandchildren.”
Her following novel, “Dreck am Stecken” (Hidden Dust), from 2019, pursued her exploration of household legacies, in a narrative informed by the eyes of 4 estranged brothers who reunite following their grandfather’s demise. He left them a field of mysterious paperwork from his previous, which lead the brothers to uncover decades-old secrets and techniques.
Journalism profession began in Kyiv
Earlier than changing into a full-time novelist, Fröhlich additionally labored as a contract author for various girls’s magazines, together with “Petra” and “Freundin.”
In line with the brief biographies on her publishers’ web sites, she first began her profession as a journalist in Kyiv, the place she based a girls’s journal through the early post-Soviet period.
Alexandra Fröhlich leaves behind three sons.
Edited by: Brenda Haas
