In Case of Loss gathers the best of Lutz Seiler's non-fiction from the last twenty-five years, revealing essays that are different to, but on a par with, his fiction and poetry. Seiler's anecdotal and associative pieces throw fascinating light on literature and his background, not least the environmental and human catastrophe of the Soviet-era mining in the community he grew up in, 'the tired villages . . . beneath which lay the ore, uranium'. Other essays focus on poetry, including his awakening to it while waiting in an army truck on his military service, and there are pieces on German poets such as Ernst Meister, Jürgen Becker and Peter Huchel. The title essay describes the poet Huchel's notebook, a kind of dictionary of images organised by mood and location.
Providing a perfect entry to Seiler's work, In Case of Loss sees one of Europe's most original writers speak with openness and insight in essays full of a poet's attention to the importance of often overlooked objects and lives.