A young man comes to the eternal city to shake off the present. In Rome, he remembers. In Rome, he falls in love. In Rome, he mourns. He meets extraordinary people and finds his task: perceive everything, leave nothing out. The murder of Caesar is as vivid to him as the scramble of sunglasses sellers on the Corso.

Ancient and modern ideals, gleaming palaces, boisterous parties and fading art. Locals, migrants, believers, tourists, beggars. In between, rubbish, lots of rubbish. And always the twinge in the chest that doctors refuse to take seriously. Roman Days takes us to the many beginnings and ends of our world and asks, in “unagitated transparency” (DLF), what we will make of it tomorrow.

Simon Strauß, born in 1988, studied, among other things, Classical Studies and is co-founder of the group “Arbeit an Europa”. In 2017, he completed his doctorate on conceptions of Roman society; he is an editor in the feuilleton of the FAZ. His debut Seven Nights received wide acclaim.