The World at My Back

Praise for The World at My Back

“Such books as The World at My Back recount experiences of total frenzy from a vantage point of clarity and calm. What makes Melle’s stand out is that he seems aware of how blackly funny the intimate details of psychotic breakdown can be. His narrative skill, in Luise von Flotow’s translation, had me laughing out loud without my losing sight of the sorrow and loneliness behind the succession of outrageous incidents.”
—New York Times

"With The World at My Back, author Thomas Melle takes us into the harrowing world of bipolar disorder, chronicling the effect it has had on him and his relationships. Yet he does this with such remarkable aplomb that the reader now laughs, now cries at his predicament. As an author, playwright, and translator, Melle is very much embedded in the cultural life of a German writer, and it is against that backdrop that the episodes swing from manic to depressive to clinical—all cleverly captured in Luise von Flotow’s remarkably nimble translation."
—Judges Citation, National Translation Award in Prose

"Melle’s illuminating memoir, translated by Luise Von Flotow, recounts three prolonged manic episodes he had between 1999 and 2010, events that profoundly affected his life and relationships. He conveys with wit and tragedy what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder."
—New York Times

"The World at My Back is in no way an easy read; instead, it’s a candid and frequently harrowing chronicle of its author’s struggles with mental health over the years, and the cyclical nature of its effect on his life. In von Flotow’s translation, this book becomes a source of insight into what its author went through—and what he gained and lost along the way."
—Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders

“Thomas Melle’s book takes readers on an at times shockingly articulate tour of his ‘nuclear’ version of bipolar disorder.”
—Globe and Mail

"Melle's account of life with bipolar disorder is candid and surprisingly intelligible."
—Literary Review of Canada

"[Melle’s] goal in The World at My Back ... is to show what being mentally ill is really like from the inside. That he is such a talented writer allows him to pull this off powerfully."
—Ottawa Review of Books

"Books written out of great emotional distress are often embarrassing. They are rarely great literature. Thomas Melle's book is great literature because he pulls it off without a single false note."
—Deutschlandfunk (German National Radio)

"Haunting insights into a bipolar identity as seen from the inside … Precisely because it is not a question of fiction—even if there is much talk of literature, even of a 'failed novel of education'—but of a poetic of the authentic, The World at My Back is an impressive document."
—Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"The author of the book is Thomas Melle, his book is called The World at My Back, and it tells of a much greater conflict and a much greater shame than you, as a reader, will probably ever feel ... Manic-depressive disorder is the tragedy of Thomas Melle’s life. That we can read about it in this book in this way is a wrenching literary event."
—Die Zeit

"The World at My Back is a book that shakes and disturbs, one that wakes the reader with a punch in the skull, as Franz Kafka wrote ... Melle's text is unique because the author manages to draw you into the action and, as far as possible, give you a realistic impression of the illness … In spite of the desperation and darkness of the subject, you can hardly help but smile at the absurdities—even as they immediately stick in your throat. Added to this is Melle's lively storytelling style, which alone lifts the book well above the wide selection of memoirs of illness."
—Literaturkritik