| Dark Matter | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Juli Zeh |
| Original title | Schilf |
| Translator | Christine Lo |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Publisher | Schöffling & Co. |
| Publication date | 1 December 2007 |
| Published in English |
2010 |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | 3-89561-431-9 |
Dark Matter (German: Schilf) is a 2007 novel by the German writer Juli Zeh. It was published as In Free Fall in the United States. It tells the story of a physics professor who is told he has to kill a man in order to get his kidnapped son back, and a detective, Schilf, who steps in to solve the case. As of December 2011, a German film adaptation directed by Claudia Lehmann was in post-production.[1]
Brigitte Helbling of Welt am Sonntag compared the novel's use of scientific concepts to Michel Houellebecq's Atomised and the works of Thomas Pynchon, and reflected that "theoretical physics as an aid to explaining the world" has become "the new religion, the new philosophy in the modern novel". Helbling wrote that with so much plotting and stylistic content as there is in Dark Matter, one would wonder how it would be possible to piece the book together: "Other authors would go belly-up with such a cargo. Juli Zeh steers it confidently and gently, even with a joke to the port. Dark Matter is a virtuoso presentation of astonishing storytelling.[2]
The book was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2011.[3]