Leif Randt

Allegro Pastel is the story of an almost normal love and its transformations. A novel in three phases, beginning in the record spring of 2018.

Leif Randt tells of happiness. Of Tanja and Jerome, of reality and badminton, of ideal states and the weddings of others. A love story from the late teens.
Tanja Arnheim, whose debut novel PanoptikumNeu enjoys cult status, turns thirty in a few weeks. With a view of Berlin’s Volkspark Hasenheide, she is waiting for an explosive idea for her new book. Her boyfriend, five years older, the sought-after web designer Jerome Daimler, lives in his parents’ bungalow in Maintal and is increasingly trying to understand his life as a spiritual retreat. The long-distance relationship of the two seems flawless. They remain closely connected through text and image, visiting each other for long weekends in their respective realities. Jogging through the nature reserve and meditation in the Main valley in southern Hesse, drifting permanent communication and sex-positive going out in Berlin – Jerome and Tanja are there for each other, but not lost to each other. Parents, friends, and depressed siblings reflect back to them a suffering to which Tanja and Jerome remain largely immune. But the desire to preserve their affection without it becoming staid or painfully existential presents the couple with a major challenge.

Born in 1983, author Leif Randt has written several novels, including the utopian Planet Magnon (2015), Shimmering Haze Over CobyCounty (2011), and the London novel Leuchtspielhaus (2009). His work has most recently been honored with the Erich Fried Prize (2016) and residency fellowships in Japan and Ireland. Since 2017, he has co-curated the PDF and video label tegelmedia.net.

In the Young Voicesseries at LiZ