And where were you, Adam?

Set during the final, chaotic months of the Second World War, this novel follows a young German soldier moving through a collapsing Eastern Front. In a sequence of stark, episodic scenes, he encounters fellow soldiers, civilians, and officers whose lives are shaped—and often shattered—by a senseless conflict drawing to its inevitable end. Rather than focusing on battlefield heroics, the narrative probes moral responsibility, guilt, faith, and the quiet complicity of ordinary people caught in history’s violence. Written by a Nobel Prize–winning German author renowned for his clear-eyed examinations of postwar conscience, the book combines spare prose with deep moral urgency. It offers a powerful meditation on individual accountability in times of collective catastrophe. Readers interested in literary war fiction, German postwar literature, or thoughtful explorations of ethics under extreme pressure will find this a compelling and unsettling work.