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A life between the elite Viennese boarding school and the fame of the gaming world: the Austrian Tonio Schachinger has won the book of the year with “Real Age”.
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This doesn't change anything for you.
Things couldn't be going better for Tonio Schachinger at the moment.
With his second novel “Echtzeitalter” he not only made it onto the coveted shortlist of the German Book Prize, but also emerged as the winner at its award ceremony in 2023.
For this reason alone it is worth putting the Viennese author's book on your reading list.
Tonio Schachinger “Real Age”: That’s what the book is about
Tonio Schachinger won the German Book Prize 2023 with his novel “Echtzeitalter”. © Arne Dedert/dpa & Rowohlt Verlag (montage)
The setting for Schachinger's “Real Age” is an elite Viennese boarding school where the children of the nobility, the rich and the super-rich spend their days.
Till Kokorda is also one of them.
As soon as he starts at the elite school, the quiet student is particularly unlucky because Till ends up in Dolinar's class, a despotic gentleman with outdated teaching methods.
With his mix of fear and harsh punishments, “Lord Voldemort” among the teachers creates a daily hell for his students, even in their free time.
In such an environment, finding real friends among your classmates is almost impossible because everyone is anxious not to end up in the firing range of the irascible class teacher.
What little free time Till has left he spends on his real passion, the real-time strategy game “Age of Empires 2”.
The game helps him escape the harshness of everyday school life and suppress his father's early death, and thus becomes the real focus of his life.
And he did it successfully: at just 15, he was the youngest top 10 player in the world, without his mother or other classmates having any idea.
A little happiness that stands on shaky ground.
An elite Viennese boarding school, housed in the former summer residence of the Habsburgs, the class teacher is an antiquated and despotic man.
What can you learn for life here?
Blurb/Rowohlt
Tonio Schachinger “Real Age”: Conclusion
What effect does the pressure not to make mistakes have on young people?
How does it feel to lose your father young?
And how do you get along among all the traditionalists when life as a teenager already brings its own problems?
Tonio Schachinger has created a great coming-of-age novel with “Real Age”.
With his clear language and incredible powers of observation, he manages to dissect the elite social structures that still exist and connect them with the reality of life of the young generation.
Always to the point, and always with a fine sense of humor.
Another great novel that takes place in Vienna: Robert Seethaler's “The Café without a Name”.
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Tonio Schachinger “Real Age”
2023 Rowohlt, ISBN-13 9783498003173
Price: Hardcover €24, e-book €19.99, 368 pages (different format)
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Tonio Schachinger
Tonio Schachinger was born in New Delhi in 1992.
He studied German at the University of Vienna and language arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
His debut novel, “Not like you,” was awarded the Bremen Literature Prize and was therefore on the shortlist for the German Book Prize in 2019.
He finally won this in 2023 with his second novel, “Real Age”.
Tonio Schachinger currently lives in Vienna.
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