In Andreas Unterweger’s »charming and virtuoso debut« (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) On Cloud Nr. 7, first-person narrator Andreas writes, »At nights, we would dream about the sea, and in the mornings we would then wake up to actually find shells in the flower boxes on the window sill«. In this second book of his, the sea plays a central part: HE and SHE, a couple justifiably reminiscent of the one in On Cloud Nr. 7, spends a week in a little Scottish village by the seaside – but HE forgot to bring his camera and therefore resorts to taking pictures with sentences. He thus creates a ›photo album‹ with haiku-like, striking pictures, as well as a novella (in 3×77 pictures). But what about the outrageous event a novella by definition requires? Well, what could be more outrageous than the emergence of life, the birth of a baby? The narrator’s wife is pregnant – while the father-to-be, with the best of intentions, is understandably nervous. However, this is not a book on pregnancy or the weather in Scotland – no, You Are My Sea is as much a book on literature as is it a book on life itself.
With incredible lightness, Andreas Unterweger faces ›the dilemma of the second book‹. Phrase by phrase, picture by picture, You Are My Sea creates a thick tangle of motives in prose; charming, witty, tender, clever and full of this special poetic power that is out of the ordinary. Not only is the book’s outer appearance unique, but also the entire literary universe of this writer: feathery light, unsentimental, yet heart-warming.