The Orphanage

Germany in 1942. Detlev has been placed by his mother in a Catholic orphanage. Here, he tries to make sense of the incomprehensible and hostile world outside. What is an orphan? Who was his father? What became of him? What do the dead look like? The dead killed in battle? The dead after an air raid? Why does God not stretch out a net to stop the bombs from falling? How did Christ suffer on the cross? What is a Jew? The Orphanage begins Fichte's exploration of sex and sexual identity, an exploration that was to become the dominant theme of his Hamburg novels. Its publication introduces a major post-war writer, acclaimed as the ‘German Jean Genet’. The Orphanage was awarded the 1965 Hermann Hesse prize.