Dark Satellites

Spectator Books of the Year 2020

‘Figures from society’s margins are at the centre of the stories... Dark Satellites throws a perceptive light on circumscribed lives on the edges of Europe.’
— David Mills, The Sunday Times

‘Clemens Meyer’s great art of describing people takes the form of the Russian doll principle: a story within a story within a story. From German jihad to a Prussian refugee drama, so much is so artfully interwoven that his work breaks the mould of the closed narrative. Images of history extending into the present are what make this collection a literary sensation.’
— Katharina Teutsch, Die Zeit

‘Meyer’s writing is brittle, laconic, clear, intense – and once again on top form. Short stories are clearly his forte. He finds memorable images for his themes: a dance without music in an unused Russian canteen; a midnight haircut; a man who slides into another identity after a break-in to his home and leaves his briefcase, the last requisite of his old life, in an abandoned shop. Meyer’s stories are quiet, tragic and once again populated by ordinary people, for whom he has always harboured sympathies.’
— Steffen Roye, Am Erker

‘Meyer’s snapshots of urban life — a burger bar, a fairground wheel, a neglected train station — are so vivid they make you see your own surroundings in the light of those faraway buildings.’
— Anna Aslanyan, Spectator