Jürg Schubiger and Rotraut Susanne Berner tell the story of a village somewhere back in time when death was still completely unknown. Nobody had ever encountered him and everything that existed remained safe and sound.
But then one day death walks into the village and from that very moment everything changes fundamentally.
Jürg Schubiger’s finespun words and Rotraut Susanne Berner’s clear, significant pictures show in an ingenious and touching manner how death brings grief and sorrow into the world but at the same time compassion, care and consolation.
by Rotraut Susanne Berner & Jürg Schubiger
- German Design Award 2014 – ‘Special Mention’
- Awarded as One of the Most Beautiful German Books 2012
- White Raven 2012
- LesePeter 2011
Link to LITRIX (detailed description & sample translation)
“It is a great achievement to tell something so intangible with ease: that finitude takes and gives life.” – Tagesanzeiger
“Rotraut Susanne Berner and Jürg Schubiger open up a completely new approach to the subject […] Berner puts far more expression into the faces than in her previous books. Suffering and grief, horror, but also hope and comfort are clearly shown. This expressiveness is gripping without ever being sentimental. Jürg Schubiger’s text is just as clear, he tells the story stringently and without a false tone. […].” – FAZ
“Jürg Schubiger’s finely spun text and Rotraut Susanne Berner’s clear, clever pictures show in an ingenious and touching way how death brings not only suffering into this picture book and into the world, but also compassion, care and comfort.” – lehrgang.kinderbuchhaus.at
Peter Hammer Verlag | hc | 32 pp | 25 x 21.5 cm | 2011 | 5+
Rights sold: Chinese (simplified & complex), French, Spanish
[original title: Als der Tod zu uns kam]