Lukas Bärfuss is one of Switzerland’s most prominent writers. Born in Thun in 1971, he is a qualified bookseller, an award-winning author, a father, and a resident of Zurich. He writes novels, plays and essays – and contributes to political debates. Bärfuss is often scathing of his country, lamenting what he sees as a yawning gap between rhetoric and reality. This has landed him in hot water more than once, his critics accusing him of being polarising and overly simplistic. His latest book is a very personal piece of work. He writes about his mother – and about growing up on the margins of society.
The moving account begins in Santo Domingo, where his mother spent the last 20 years of her life as a Swiss Abroad. After her death, Bärfuss found a bank statement in her flat. All she had in her account was 60 Swiss francs. Bärfuss agonised over why he had never helped her. Yet they had not been in contact for years. The author explains why in the longest chapter, which covers his childhood in Thun. It was there that he lived alone with his mother. She had become a single parent after divorcing his father, who had been sent to prison for petty crimes.
Roaming the streets at 15
His mother worked as a cleaner by day, before transforming into a beautiful “queen of the night”– at a bar that was known to be frequented by some of the town’s dignitaries. Erotic appeal was her sole capital in a wealthy country, her son writes. When this allure began to fade, she worked in the local ammunition factory. Money was tight, and in winter their flat stayed cold. The mother saw her son as an “occupational accident” and a burden. Bärfuss suffered severe neglect. “She was not a mother,” he writes, “she was a liability.” One day, he found the flat half-empty. She had simply moved out without telling the then 15-year-old Bärfuss.
The mother saw her son as a burden, barely looking after him.
For several years, Bärfuss had no fixed abode and slept in parks or in shopping malls. He hid from the authorities, who would have otherwise branded him “antisocial” – given his parents’ history and his mother’s Traveller family background. He got by doing odd jobs – and read books that shaped his mind and allowed him to dream. A teacher training scholarship offered him an opening, but his mother took the money and left for the Dominican Republic. She would have been unable to live off her pension in Switzerland.
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