An das Wilde glauben

Jury’s comment

In An das Wilde glauben (In the Eye of the Wild), Nastassja Martin describes a complete turnaround and willingness to expand the dialogue with the world to include other beings and ways of being. “What happened was: Bear and woman meet and the boundary between realms is erased.” In this autobiographical book, she attempts to think of the wild, the outsourced, dissociated wild, as possible and livable. An das Wilde glauben tells of complex wounding and no less complex healing. Inquiringly and defiantly, the author also questions the legitimacy of medical economics and the supposed conventions of anthropology. The book knows how to let strangers be strangers and not settle for rash explanations. Martin travels into the unknown and does not want to leave the unknown. This book is a challenge to believe in the wild and thus in those intrinsic and global transformation processes that this era so urgently needs.

– Heike Geißler, jury

Author: Nastassja Martin

Nastassja Martin is an anthropologist and writer. A student of anthropologist Philippe Descola, she is a specialist in the cosmologies and animisms of Alaska’s peoples.

Translator: Claudia Kalscheuer

Claudia Kalscheuer studied Romance languages, linguistics and philosophy in Berlin and Toulouse. She has been translating from French since 1994, including works by Marie NDiaye, Jules Verne and Sylvain Tesson.