Verzauberte Vorbestimmung by Jonas Lüscher
Verzauberte Vorbestimmung by Jonas Lüscher is a German novel published by Carl Hanser Verlag in Munich. The cover design has been created by Barbara Thoben of the Cologne-based studio Lübbeke Naumann Thoben. The novel was nominated for the German Book Prize 2025, and won the 2025 Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize.
Translated from the book summary on the publisher’s website:
An Algerian soldier is caught in the first German poison gas attack, decides that someone has to stop it, gets up and leaves. In the Cairo of the future, a stand-up comedian observes an android laughing at her jokes. A Bohemian weaver is replaced by an automated loom, steals a hammer and attacks the machine. What do we, the people of capitalism, dream of, and what do our machines, which are increasingly rising up against us, dream of? In the unique mirror space of this novel, no conflict is over and every story is still possible. Clever and mad, funny and sharp, Jonas Lüscher’s story is at the height of his art.
The hardcover book comes with a jacket that pairs Swiss Typefaces’ TheW Clan GZA on the front with Adobe’s Arno for the back cover blurb and testimonials. The pairing reflects the book’s thematic tension between history and dystopian future. TheW Clan GZA, an anti-dogmatic serif hybrid, frames the front illustration: the protagonist of the historical engraving The Leader of the Luddites (1812). The typeface’s unconventional forms introduce a futuristic, slightly destabilizing note, contrasting with the engraving and Arno’s classical serif grounding on the back.
With the jacket removed, the hardcover uses TheW Clan GZA on the spine for the author, title, and publisher name, while the front cover takes a minimalist approach: the jacket illustration disappeared leaving behind only its shadow, extended to cover the page.
