AustLit

'The men in uniform approached him. "Dimm, don't go!" I cried, grabbing the iron bars. Slipping from my hand, a small coffee bean rolled between the bars, ending on the floor next to Dimm. He looked down at it, then up at me and I knew that finally there was no one to compete with for his heart. It was all mine, beating for me and me only. With a vicious leer on his face, one of the guards crushed the tiny bean under his heavy boot. Over the years, I have this scene as a repetitive dream. I live this scene over and over again. Arnya Stefan is a woman haunted by her childhood trauma in communist Bulgaria. Now a writer of 'coffee portraits', she travels to Switzerland in the hope of completing her coffee pilgrimage. Instead she meets another 'coffee animal', Bruno Stein who is possibly the one person who can teach her to "walk in the present, savouring life like a superb, delicious coffee". The Coffee Lovers is a poignant and beautiful examination of freedom, jealousy and guilt, and of finding that one like-minded soul who can heal your past.' (Publication summary)