The Puppeteers from Flore
The Puppeteers von Flore is a dystopian youth novel by the German writer Lilli Thal from 2015. It tells the story of 16-year-old Tamaso, who is used as a spy for his homeland Corona against the hostile state Flore.
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On the day of his graduation party, Tamaso is taken from school without having been informed beforehand. His parents have already prepared a celebration at home, but nothing comes of it, because Tamaso is taken out of the country in a bus with 19 other young people and ends up with them in a desert camp. This is located in Corona, the neighboring country of Parman, where Tamaso lived.
Little by little it becomes clear what is going on here: The 20 young people are actually children of Coronary parents, but were given to Parmanic foster families as small children. Now they are to be prepared in the camp for a secret service operation for Corona. In the dictatorial Flore, which threatens Corona, they are to be used as domestic servants after their training - with high-ranking people in order to spy on them.
Tamaso's time in camp is bad, not just because he was separated from his parents. The training is merciless, after all, he befriends some of the other young people. After several months he is finally sent on as a Parman boy to the house of the dreaded secret service general Utuk. There he soon realizes what a terrible regime he is leading. Insurgents are regularly executed in the basement of the house.
The new job as a mechanic in the general's house is tough, but at least there are a few other house servants who mean well with Tomaso. Tomaso also meets the general's son, who is a puppeteer. Tamaso is completely fascinated by the puppet shows, while General Utuk has nothing but contempt for them.
On the orders of his leader, Tamaso initiates an attempted coup , but it fails. Thereupon he flees with the other youths into the mountains, where their evacuation should take place. But this base is abandoned. It is only by chance that they come across another operation team who are sending a carrier pigeon to Corona to evacuate them. Evacuated and back home, the young people get their own houses and money as a reward for their espionage. Before the end, the reader learns that their leader has defected to the opponents.
Literary genre and style
The book is a novel for young people, although the young people have had many traumatic experiences. It can also be called dystopia . It can be assigned to the literary genre epic . It is written “close to life” and “stylishly”. The publisher recommends it for young people aged 14 and over.
reception
For Siggi Seuss of the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Lilli Thal is one of the great authors of contemporary youth literature - and he sees his impression fully confirmed in The Puppeteers of Flores . The story is set in a fictional, semi-modern world with states that are reminiscent of the USA and North Korea , and it is told in a captivating manner throughout. The characters are finely drawn in their psychology and the plot is so skilfully constructed that there is no scaffolding to be found anywhere. Thal's language is close to life and stylish, even poetic.
In the NZZ , reviewer Andrea Lüthi cannot make herself comfortable in the fantastic world of evil that Lilli Thal creates in her book. Not with cozy showers over enemy states, coup attempts and secret torture rooms, says Lüthi. Instead, it follows the story of the 16-year-old first-person narrator, laid out by the author as a multi-layered personality, who has to go through paramilitary training in the book with unrelenting tension. According to Lüthi, this is because the text is so close to real events in crisis and war zones.
Awards
- Donkey of the month ( dog-eared ) (August 2015)
- Book of the Month December 2015 ( German Academy for Children's and Young Adult Literature )
- Reading Guide, September 2015 ( Börsenblatt )
- The best 7 books for young readers, September 2015 ( Deutschlandfunk )
Individual evidence
- ^ Lilli Thal: The puppeteers from Flore . Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2015, ISBN 978-3-8369-5801-1 , p. 475-473 .
- ↑ Ulf Cronenberg: Book review: Lilli Thal "The Puppeteers of Flore". In: Jugendbuchtipps.de. October 15, 2015, accessed October 13, 2017 .
- ↑ Siggi Seuss: Prisoners of the Marshal . In: sueddeutsche.de . August 6, 2015, ISSN 0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed October 28, 2017]).
- ^ Lilli Thals "The Puppeteers von Flore": Reign of Terror . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . February 3, 2016, ISSN 0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed October 28, 2017]).
- ↑ Awards 2017. 2017, accessed on October 20, 2017 .