Beside Myself A Novel

A brilliant literary debut about belonging, family, and love, and the enigmatic nature of identity.
 
Beside Myself is the disturbing and exhilarating story of a family across four generations. At its heart is a twin’s search for her brother. When Anton goes missing and the only clue is a postcard sent from Istanbul, Ali leaves her life in Berlin to find him. Without her twin, the sharer of her memories and the mirror of her own self, Ali is lost.
 
In a city steeped in political and social upheaval, where you can buy gender-changing drugs on the street, Ali’s search—for her missing brother, for her identity—will take her on a journey for connection and belonging.

Sasha Marianna Salzmann is a playwright, essayist, curator, and writer in residence of the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. They are a cofounder of the culture magazine freitext and were the artistic director of Studio Я from 2013 to 2015. They also cofounded NIDS – New Institute for Drama, where they give workshops on political writing. Their work has been translated, performed, and bestowed awards in more than twenty countries. Their first novel, Beside Myself, won the Mara Cassens Prize and the Jürgen Ponto-Stiftung Prize for best debut novel, was short-listed for the 2017 German Book Prize, and has been translated into fifteen languages.

Imogen Taylor studied French and German at New College, Oxford, and the Humboldt University in Berlin. She is the translator of Sascha Arango, Dirk Kurbjuweit, and Melanie Raabe, among others. In March 2016 she received the Goethe-Institut Award for New Translations.