Dr. Andreas Martin Widmann publishes new novel Eddi

Dr. Andreas Martin Widmann has recently published a new novel, Eddi. Published by Weissbooks Verlag, the novel follows fifteen-year-old Eddi as she attends a sports boarding school near Neubrandenburg. While her parents prepare to move to Japan after her mother has been accused of abuse of power, Eddi has only three hot summer days left to avert her fate or adopt a new personality. In the process, she is swept through a series of microcosms in a German province that seem strangely familiar and yet completely new through her eyes.

“For me, the driving force in a novel can only be a character,” Widmann explains. “Only if I can picture a character in a specific situation, am I able to find a sound in which to tell a story. With Eddi, it was the scene with which the book begins: A 15-year-old girl, in a lawn chair, eating a popsicle and contemplating if she should run away. The question, of course, was, run away from what? Or from where? That’s when the setting came in, a boarding school for athletes, and the conflict in which she finds herself through no fault of her own.”

In describing the writing process of the novel, Widmann says, “Eddi is a book that never would have been written if everything had gone as planned. Even before my second novel, Messias, came out in 2018, I had started writing a novel that was intended to become my third one… That manuscript never got picked up. Eventually, I realized I would need to try something else. Simone, my wife, told me that what she would most like to read from me was a story with a female protagonist. That was the original impulse.”

Widmann is a key faculty member of Bard College Berlin’s German Studies Program, specializing in German literature. In courses such as ‘The Writing Life’ and ‘German Literary History,’ Widmann introduces students to both German literary studies as well as the practical aspects of Germany’s publishing scene.

A public book launch and reading was held on March 3 at the Literaturforum im Brecht House to celebrate the release of Eddi, featuring a discussion moderated by Saarländischer Rundfunk’s literary editor Tilla Fuchs.

On April 15, 2026 at 7:15pm, a recording of the event and of Widmann reading from the novel will be broadcast by Saarländischer Rundfunk, which will then be available to listen to on ARD Sounds.

Post Date: 04-08-2026