It's the night before the Feast in the village of Fürstenfelde (population: declining), but not everyone is asleep. The local artist, wearing an evening dress and gumboots, goes down to the lake under cover of darkness. The village archivist is kept awake by ancient tales that threaten to take on a life of their own. A retired lieutenant-colonel weighs his pistol, and his future, in his hand. And eighteen-year-old Anna, namesake of the Feast, prepares to take her place in tomorrow's drinking and dancing, eating and burning.On this night of misdeeds and mischief, they are joined by a dead ferryman, a hapless bellringer, a cigarette machine, two robbers in football shirts and a vixen on the hunt - as their fates collide in the most unexpected ways.

The award-winning novelist Sa?a Stani?ic was born in Visegrad, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1978 and has lived in Germany since 1992. His debut novel How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone was acclaimed by readers and critics alike, and has been translated into 30 languages so far. Before the Feast, his second novel, won the 2014 Leipzig Book Fair Prize, was longlisted for the German Book Prize, and won the Alfred-Döblin and Hohenemser literary prizes.

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It's the night before the Feast in the village of Furstenfelde (population: declining), but not everyone is asleep. The local artist, wearing an evening dress and gumboots, goes down to the lake under cover of darkness. The village archivist is kept awake by ancient tales that threaten to take on a life of their own. A retired lieutenant-colonel weighs his pistol, and his future, in his hand. And eighteen-year-old Anna, namesake of the Feast, prepares to take her place in tomorrow's drinking and dancing, eating and burning.On this night of misdeeds and mischief, they are joined by a dead ferryman, a hapless bellringer, a cigarette machine, two robbers in football shirts and a vixen on the hunt - as their fates collide in the most unexpected ways.