Superabundance

Alone in New York, separated from his girlfriend by the Atlantic Ocean, the nameless narrator of Heinz Helle's electric debut novel is sinking slowly into an invisible crisis.

He loves his girlfriend but finds himself attracted to every woman he passes on the street. Totally self-aware yet unable to change his behaviour, he wonders at the ease with which everyone else seems to cope with life. Worse, his brain won't stop its whirring analysis of the world around him, and it's making any human interaction - watching football with friends, drinking with work colleagues, comforting his girlfriend - all but impossible.

Superabundance's buzzing narration brings to life the philosophical struggles of everyday existence, and asks: how do we live when our relationships, our actions and even our own minds are filled with such heartbreaking mystery?

Heinz Helle was born in 1978. He studied philosophy in Munich and New York. He has worked as copywriter for advertising agencies, and is a graduate of the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel. Superabundance is his first book.