Antonia Michaelis » Mike and I and Max Ernst « Coverillustration by Birgit Brandt 10+, June 2003 224 pages, 13.0 x 21.0 cm ISBN 978-3-7855-4820-2 hardcover 3,95 € (D) Rights sold: Turkish

In 1939 a picture vanishes. "The Beautiful Gardener or the Creation of Eve" by the painter Max Ernst is last shown in the Nazi exhibition "Degenerate Art" and never seen again.
On a bright moonlit night some time in the present, Lucinda meets a mysterious figure in the corridor of a museum. She claims to be a figure by Max Ernst, and is looking for a vanished picture. And this marks the start of a strange journey for Lucinda too, right across Europe to the blue Mediterranean. But her way is long and dangerous. And soon much more is at stake than saving a long lost picture.
The author skilfully intertwines the two strands of the story: The main action centres around Lucinda, Mike and "The beautiful Gardener" and takes place in the present; but there are also flashbacks illustrating Max Ernst's life and the first painting of "The beautiful Gardener."
To a large extend this novel owes its special charm to the language Antonia Michaelis uses. She writes in a style that can be called pictorial and fantastical as well as poetical.

Antonia Michaelis was born in North Germany in 1979. She spent the first two years of her childhood ...