nathalie dewalhens

＂What happens when the spirit of Berlin collides with that of a petite, shy costume designer? ＂

Berlin Bar Stories isn’t a typical novel.It is made up of often standalone stories that gradually reveal the larger picture. Set mostly in Berlin’s diverse bars, the main storyline follows Laura, a Belgian costume designer who, in the early 2000’s, sought refuge in Berlin’s chaotic embrace. Alongside the petite and timid Laura, the city of Berlin itself emerges as a second protagonist, its fractured history mirroring the woman’s own trauma.

Laura’s carefully constructed safe life in Berlin takes a U-turn when her cousin Jan appears in her favourite bar forcing her to confront their shared childhood trauma.

Through raw yet accessible prose, each chapter contributes to a larger story, connected by trauma but always illuminated by hope and a certain tenderness. Against a soundtrack of 80s music and Berlin’s kinky, open-minded underground scene, the novel explores how cities, like people, can transform their scars into strength.

＂Berlin is a city with ADHD. A city on speed, a city that never sleeps, except in the early mornings. A city that is tough and warm and beautiful and ugly and social and anti-social and grey and colourful and open- minded and conservative and vanilla and dark chocolate, bursting with joy and depressive as fuck. Berlin is all of that. Berlin is all of us.＂