Cast a Shadow
Published by Diogenes as Wirf einen Schatten
Original Title: Wirf einen Schatten

Joseph is lonely and struggling with his lot in life, not least because his wife Lis, unable to bear day-to-day life on the farm, has fled to the city with their son. This is far from a daily occurrence in the 1960s in the countryside. Luckily, Ada, Lis’ older sister, is still there — with whom Joseph perhaps always felt more connected. And then 19-year-old Birdie suddenly appears on his doorstep, weak, and fleeing her own predetermined path. Lis, Ada and Birdie — they will turn not only their own lives upside down, but Joseph’s too.

Novel, Contemporary Literature
304 pages
2026

978-3-257-07390-4
Elena
Fischer

Elena Fischer, born in 1987, studied comparative literature and film in Mainz, where she lives with her family. In 2019 and 2020, she participated in the Darmstadt Text Workshop, led by Kurt Drawert. In 2021 she was a finalist at the 29th ›Open Mike‹ with an extract from her debut novel Paradise Garden and won the Mainz provincial government’s prize for young authors. Elena Fischer has been nominated for the ›German Book Prize‹ and for the ›Harbour Front Literary Festival’s Debut Prize‹ 2023.

Photo: Alexander Conrads / © Diogenes Verlag

Pressezitate

Katharina Teutsch
Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Cologne

»And it flawlessly interweaves past, present, and future.«

Claudio Armbruster
ZDF, Mainz

»There are a thousand ways to tell a story. Elena Fischer chooses the dark, challenging, magical one.«

Alexander Jürgs
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt

»Cast a Shadow has a different tone, a different mood, a different topic, and it goes beyond expectations.«

Katja Weise
NDR Kultur, Hamburg

»That’s how history evolves. And Elena Fischer tells about it in a magnificent way«