The Capital

"A deliciously vicious - and timely - satire about the E.U. and the meaning of Europe today" - Frederick Studemann, Financial TimesBrussels. A hive of tragic heroes, manipulative losers, involuntary accomplices. No wonder the European Commission is keen to improve its image.The fiftieth anniversary [...]
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"A deliciously vicious - and timely - satire about the E.U. and the meaning of Europe today" - Frederick Studemann, Financial TimesBrussels. A hive of tragic heroes, manipulative losers, involuntary accomplices. No wonder the European Commission is keen to improve its image.The fiftieth anniversary of the European Commission approaches, and the Directorate-General for Culture is tasked with organising an appropriate celebration. When Fenia Xenopoulou's assistant comes up with a plan to put Auschwitz at the very centre of the jubilee, she is delighted. But she has neglected to take the other E.U. institutions into account.Inspector Brunfaut is in a tricky situation too: his murder case has been suppressed at the highest level. Luckily, he's friends with the I.T. whizz at Brussels' Police H.Q., who gains access to secret files in the public prosecutor's office. Matek, the Polish hitman, knows nothing of this. But he does know that he shot the wrong guy, and for Matek, who would rather have become a priest, this is serious. Professor Erhart from Vienna is in Brussels to make a pitch for his grand idea for a new Europe, to remind people of how and why the E.U. came into being in the first place. But will the speech he intends to give to a think tank of likeminded Europeans prove his death knell? David de Vriend has just moved into a nursing home and must adjust to his new surroundings. He carries with him only his tailored suits, memories of his long-dead parents and his last glimpse of them on a train in Poland, and a list of names, each one ready to be crossed off. Meanwhile the city is on the lookout for a runaway pig . . .The Capital is a sharp satire, a crime story, a comedy of manners, a wild pig chase. It tells the tale of a continent, a city and its inhabitants as they navigate their way through the confusing tangle of 21st-century life. A "House of Cards" for the E.U. Commission - Winner of the German Book PrizeTranslated from the German by Jamie Bulloch