The Red Diamond

• More than 250,000 copies of Thomas Hürlimann books sold 

• Nominated for the Swiss Book Prize

• Reviewed and recommended for translation by New Books in German
• English sample translation available online

A masterly tale about a boarding school and a parable for our time.

'Fit in and you'll survive,' is what eleven-year-old Arthur Goldau is told when his mother drops him off at a monastic boarding school high up in the Swiss mountains in the autumn of 1963. Here, where the snow starts falling in September, and where the former Austrian Empress Zita visits every year, he becomes 'Pupil 230' and learns what generations before him learned. But the enormous old monastery, in which times doesn't seem to pass, harbours a secret: an enormous, valuable diamond from the crown of the Habsburg monarchy has allegedly been hidden when the Austrian monarchy fell in 1918. While Arthur and his friends search for the diamond deep within the catacombs of the monastery and history, the old world collapses around them. Rose, the village girl with a missing tooth, introduces him to love as Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are a-Changin' wafts through the corridors. 

One of the most important Swiss authors at the height of his skills: 'a fixed star in the literary firmament'. -- Peer Teuwsen, NZZ am Sonntag

This author overwhelms. -- Jochen Hieber - FAZ

Hürlimann's latest book is a masterpiece. -- Martin Ebel - Basler Zeitung 

[a] book you won't forget any time soon: " The Red Diamond" is an almost breathtakingly good, highly intelligent novel -- Christoph Schröder - Deutschlandfunk Kultur 

a cultural-history-saturated, a rich, a clever, an also enigmatic "novel of doom". -- Katharina Borchardt - SWR2 

With his novel 'The Red Diamond', the Swiss writer has created a masterpiece. -- Jochen Hieber - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Thomas Hürlimann turns his memories of the Einsiedeln boarding school into a fascinating monastery thriller à la Umberto Eco. -- Charles Linsmayer - Bieler Tagblatt