Boy with a Black Rooster

Can an eleven-year-old boy succeed where others have failed? Can he recover a kidnapped child, disprove a false accusation of assault, or win a sleep-deprivation competition that has driven others mad with tragic consequences?

He can, if he is accompanied by a black rooster, his protector and friend. And if he is Martin, orphaned after a massacre, full of wisdom, courage, and a pure heart. Too good for the selfish and idiotic villagers around him, his integrity entrances an itinerant painter with whom he departs on a quest. His heroic adventures through a morally abhorrent landscape, physically ravaged by war and famine, keep the reader cheering for him and his companion as this fairy tale for adults unfolds.

Set against a pseudo-medieval post-apocalyptic backdrop reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, Angela Carter, and Missouri Williams, this bestselling novel shines with the inner radiance of good deeds in a naughty world that will leave you haunted, horrified, and completely riveted.

This novel is a danse macabre, a memento mori, a vision of good and evil pared down to the bones. Boy with a Black Rooster beckons the reader into a nightmare landscape of war, famine, plague, and madness, and Stefanie vor Schulte's storytelling verve is such that we make the journey gladly. — Sam Thompson, author of Communion Town, Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012

Wow, what a book! Fabular but true, this meticulously crafted and deceptively simple tale stole my heart, broke it, and put it back together again. Vor Schulte is unflinching in her depiction of the worst of humankind, its cruelty and violence, but she also shows how love and kindness can flourish in even the darkest times. A beautiful, heart-rending book. — Victoria MacKenzie, author of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain

This appears light as a feather, yet elaborately crafted all the same. — Rose-Maria Gropp

It feels like an old story, one of those that stays with you forever, but every part of it is surprising and wonderful. I want to go straight back and read it all again. — Sin Hughes, author of Pearl

A debut that is both admirable and truly unique. — Jean-Baptiste Hamelin, Page des Libraires

Halfway between macabre tale and surrealist epic. — Camille Thomine, Lire magazine litteraire