On a Day Like This

Peter Stamm

A story of a day like this when a teacher Andreas decides to change his life completely.

On a day like any other, Andreas changes his life. When a routine doctor’s visit leads to an unexpected prognosis, a great yearning takes hold of him—but who can tell if it is homesickness or wanderlust? Andreas leaves everything behind, sells his Paris apartment; cuts off all social ties; quits his teaching job; and waves goodbye to his days spent idly sitting in cafes—to look for a woman he once loved, half a lifetime ago. The monotony of days has been keeping him in check; now he hopes for a miracle and for a new beginning.


Andreas’ travels lead him back to the province of his youth, back to his hometown in Switzerland where he returns to familiar streets, where his brother still lives in their childhood home, and where Fabienne, a woman he was obsessed with in his youth, visits the same lake they once swam in together. Andreas, still consumed with longing for his lost love and blinded by the uncertainty of his future, is tormented by the question of what might have been if things had happened differently.

Peter Stamm (1963)

He lived in Paris, New York, Scandinavia, London and Berlin. He currently lives with his family in Winterthur, Switzerland. Since 1990 he is a writer and a freelance journalist. His work has won several awards. He belongs to the most frequently translated ... More.

Ján Jambor (1972)

More.

Pavlína Morháčová (1985)

Slovak designer and graphic artist More.