Schwimmen

Schwimmen, Sina Pousset's debut novel, follows Milla and Jan, friends since childhood, on a trip to the sea alongside Jan's girlfriend Kristina. Over three days, the three drift between fear, love, and longing, their unresolved feelings for each other coming to a head just as a violent storm hits the coast. Jan does not survive it.

Four years later, Milla is navigating the city with her young daughter Emma on a cold morning when something reminds her of Jan, forcing her to finally confront a past she has spent years avoiding.

The novel is a quiet, literary character study of grief and unspoken longing, told in spare, precise prose that has been singled out by German critics for how deliberately each sentence is placed.