Olga Grjasnowa was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1984 and grew up in the Caucasus. She
has spent many years living abroad in Poland, Russia, Israel and Turkey. She is a graduate of the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. In 2011 she was awarded the European Border Crossers Prize by the Robert Bosch Foundation. Her celebrated and bestselling debut novel “Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt” (Hanser) (All Russians Love Birch Trees, publ. in English by Other Press 2014) was awarded the Klaus-Michael Kühne Prize and the Anna Seghers Prize in 2012. In 2014 Hanser Verlag published her second novel “The Legal Haziness of a Marriage”, which won the Adelbert von Chamisso Promotional Prize. Both nov- els have been adapted for the stage and will be adapted for cinema soon. Her most recent publication is “God Is Not Shy” (Aufbau 2017). Olga Grjasnowa was a writer in residence in Istanbul, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, and Lenzburg in Switzerland. She lives with her family in Berlin.

GOD IS NOT SHY

When the Syrian revolution breaks out, Amal is celebrating her first success as an actor and dreaming of future renown. Two years later she finds herself drifting on the ocean, because the cargo ship that was supposed to smuggle her to Europe sank. She rescues a baby, and from then on calls it her own.

Hammoudi has just aquired his medical degree and has been offered a place at the best hospital in Paris. He travels to Damascus to sort out the formalities, unaware that he will never see his fiancée Claire again. Unaware that he will soon be huddled with a hundred total strangers on a tiny rubber dinghy, hoping to reach Lesbos alive. In Berlin, Amal and Hammoudi will meet: two people who lost everything and have to start afresh.

In her much awaited third novel Olga Grjasnowa reminds us that there are many worlds besides the one on our doorstep, and that it is worth getting to know them. Her new book is a straightforward, cruel and unforgettable piece of literature – and a harrowing document of our age.