A far from ordinary story about two brothers fleeing from a war-torn country to Europe. The flight full of hardships in a cold winter landscape is told in a unique way, namely as from a physical point of view: it is more about the reactions of the body than of the mind, it is as if the body speaks to the reader. Next to that the book is not moralizing, it is not a political or social pamphlet, it doesn’t point fingers. Europe is an anonymous, impersonal feature. An unadorned story, but told with strong imagination. The sufferings, the feelings and impressions, especially of the younger brother, are described in a very empathetic way. And this is mainly due to the original, raw, succinct poetic style of Šindelka, like we already know from his previous work, for instance Map of Anna.

Material Fatigue was shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature 2017; the European Literature Prize 2019 (The Netherlands) and the Payot Bookstore Prize 2021 (Switzerland).

“I am impressed by Marek Šindelka’s novel Material Fatigue that I read yesterday evening in one shot. Material Fatigue is about the mourning music of life, reflected in rhythmic sentences as in Schubert’s Winterreise.”

— NRC, Michel Krielaars (editor in chief)

“Šindelka astonishes. Razor sharp, like the language of the author. Unfortunately Material Fatigue will not make the F-16’s disappear from the Syrian airspace, but there is no doubt that this is powerful literature.
5 stars (Book of the Year 2018).”

— Knack

“This is not the first novel about refugees, but it is a very convincing one. Šindelka is able to make the cold, hunger and despair empathetic and gives the numb follower of news with this powerful novel a blow in his well-fed stomach.”

— VPRO

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