Gut gegen Nordwind

Emmi Rothner means to cancel a magazine subscription by email, but a mistyped address lands her message in the inbox of Leo Leike, a language consultant she's never met. His polite reply sparks a correspondence that neither of them expects to matter — until it does. Told entirely through their exchanged emails, Gut gegen Nordwind traces an increasingly intimate relationship built on words alone.

Emmi is happily married; Leo has recently ended a long relationship. Both know that an in-person meeting would change everything, and both keep finding reasons to delay it, even as their messages grow more confessional, teasing and dependent on one another. Daniel Glattauer's epistolary novel became a bestseller across the German-speaking world for its precise, funny rendering of how digital intimacy forms — and how it collides with the more complicated obligations of real life. It was followed by a sequel, Alle sieben Wellen, and adapted for stage and screen.