A few weeks after the German publication of his debut novel in 2024, author Matthias Jügler received a call from an employee at the German government agency tasked with investigating the human rights abuses of the socialist east.
The call wasn’t overtly threatening; Jügler was asked to explain what historical source material he had consulted for Mayfly Season and which period he was planning to tackle in his next book. But it came after another government official had accused him of traumatising some of his readership, and after the organiser of a reading had asked him to bring along documents proving the plausibility of his book’s plot.
