“A powerful novel, rich in imagery, historical and yet utterly contemporary — about love, courage, and hope in dark times. A must-read!” - NDR Kultur
“In Rage Is a Bright Star, Anja Kampmann writes about the past as if it could happen again. The book is both a warning and a monument to a working class that positioned itself against fascism under the harshest conditions. A novel like a literary tightrope walk.” - SWR Kultur Lesenswert
“What is remarkable about Anja Kampmann’s novel Rage Is a Bright Star is how consistently it tells contemporary history as a history of the body. [...] The transformation of people into a new ‘national body’ was all-encompassing in Hamburg of the 1930s.” - NZZ
“The poetic density, the storytelling in scenes often charged with phantasmagoria, make Rage Is a Bright Star an outstanding novel. In her literary imagination, Anja Kampmann conjures up the years between 1933 and 1937 so vividly that it becomes clear: this is by no means merely a historical novel, but something profoundly of the present. The author does not aim for superficial effects, nor for facile parallels between the end of the Weimar Republic and current crises. She takes a risky, poetic plunge into depth. […] A major contemporary novel, one of the literary standouts of this year.” - DLF Kultur Lesart
Hedda has fought for her dream to perform in the Alkazar, a club in Hamburg’s red-light district. But when new uniforms appear in the audience in the 1930s, none of that counts.
Personal liberties are restricted and the show girls’ lives become more and more precarious. Who can Hedda still trust?
Her brother Jaan boards a whaling ship bound for Antarctica, hired as a harpoon-maker. Hedda starts to search for ways to escape with her younger brother Pauli.
Anja Kampmann’s story about a woman’s self-assertion in a male-dominated era is written in tense, atmospheric language with a light touch.