Photo: Tim Bruening
No other debut novel this year has triggered as much controversy as Josefine Rieks’ »Serverland«—and this isn’t a bad achievement for a mere 170-page book with a daring, utopian story in a presumed post-internet era. Whether »lusciously meander[ing] between utopia and catastrophe« (SZ) or »pin[ning] her theme on the plot like an accessory« (Zeit), with her narrative of an emerging youth movement that meets in an abandoned server hall to glorify the internet age, Josefine Rieks provokes net enthusiasts and opponents of digitalisation alike. In our eyes, »Serverland« is most of all a great pop novel, a shimmering thing crammed with trash, high culture, nonsense, and digital insanity. Josefine Rieks has described her upcoming event at Pop-Kultur as »a combination of a contemporary reading and classic YouTube party«.
More about Josefine Rieks