Christoph Keller

Der beste Tänzer

«Eine Krankheit schreitet voran, sagt man, was im Zusammenhang mit der meinen nicht einer gewissen Ironie entbehrt.»

The author Christoph Keller suffers from ‹spinal muscular atrophy› (SMA) in which case the brain gradually loses control over the locomotor system. One loses one’s freedom of movement. In «The Best Dancer» he talks about his illness. The book is not a factual report on his life, rather, it is a work of prose art. It is remarkable how brutally honest he takes stock of all the losses that followed the diagnosis ‹SMA› twenty years earlier. That same year another diagnosis was made: His father’s business went bankrupt, an event with devastating consequences for his entire family. His father’s helpless anger about it would never go away.
Keller combines the two painful threads. Both the father and the spinal muscular atrophy are illnesses which he gradually learnt to deal with but which nevertheless continue to humble and anger him. He subtly differentiates between reality and fiction. Above all, he succeeds at keeping the burgeoning bitterness and shame at bay through ironic remarks. Like a dancer of stylistic sovereignty he holds his ground between the two dangerous maelstroms of his life. A book in which feelings of weakness alternate beautifully with liberating moments of happiness.

(Beat Mazenauer, transl.by Anja Hälg)

Translation of title: The Best Dancer

S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003

ISBN: 978-3-596-16884-2