When I was ten years old I was in class 5b at the Wald primary school and as popular as you can only be if you wear the clothes of your brother who’s seven years older, while your haircut (a Mum special) is about a decade out of fashion.
Picture, if you can, a sullen young boy with a big nose, bowl haircut, leather trousers and an aluminium briefcase, who likes to spend all his breaktime in the library. Yes, precisely: I was that classic book nerd who nobody wanted on their dodgeball team apart from as cannon fodder.
And then Ender came.
Ender, a German of Turkish origin, was the biggest thug in the school and had to repeat a year twice. When he first entered the classroom I thought he’d come to pick up his child early from school. But then the coolest of the cool boys was seated right next to me.
Our class teacher probably thought that the swot (me) might have a positive influence on the problem child (Ender). But of course the reverse happened. Ender changed my life, first and foremost by liking me, which might have been because I helped him out with homework. Believe me, no coercion was involved, nor did I have to surrender my trainers to Ender. On the contrary, from his dad’s sports shop he brought me my first Adidas customisable sneakers and so liberated me from my ugly clodhoppers.
And because he, Mr Popular, became my friend, this rubbed off on the mob that were my classmates, who till then hadn’t even wanted to ignore me.
Ender taught me lots of useful things essential to the daily life of a primary school pupil, such as how to smoke a cigar (although it was a bad idea to try it behind the gym as the sports teacher was jogging past). Later he smuggled his father’s 18-rated videos out of their apartment (Rollerball, Class of 1984, The Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead and – of course – Escape from New York with Kurt Russell). This might give you an inkling of where my passion for thrillers comes from. To cut a long story short, I have much to thank Ender for and – mate – it’s great to still be friends with you after all these years. Of course I’ll come to visit you next Sunday in prison (just joking).
This is the second time I’m celebrating a ten-year anniversary. And I can rightly say that the last few years have been some of the most intense but also happiest of my life.
I’m often asked what has changed in my life since I became an author. My standard response is: not much. I still drive a Ferrari and sleep in my twenty-room villa in Grunewald. (Here I ought to add a smiley to make it clear that this is a joke too. Preferably one with tears of joy. I’d love to know the last time I laughed quite so much as this overused tears-of-joy smiley, but I’m digressing.)
In truth my life has changed drastically over the past decade, chiefly because I’ve had the privilege of getting to know so many great people I’d never have met had I not become a writer. And first and foremost this means you, dear readers.
I admit that when I published my email address in my debut novel, Therapy, I was utterly naïve. I reckoned on getting a handful of messages. A dozen emails, perhaps, in which readers would point out typos, voice their criticism, or maybe offer some fleeting praise. But how wrong I was! So far I’ve received over 40,000 emails and have been chuffed about each one.
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Now to the acknowledgements. I should like to point out that the thanks I’m offering here are also an apology. So let me say thank you and sorry to (in no particular order of importance): Hans-Peter Übleis, Theresa Schenkel, Josef Röckl, Bernhard Fetsch, Steffen Haselbach, Katharina Ilgen, Monika Neudeck, Patricia Kessler, Sibylle Dietzel, Iris Haas, Hanna Pfaffenwimmer, Carolin Graehl, Regina Weisbrod, Helmut Henkensiefken, Manuela Raschke and the rest of the family (including Karl and Sally), Barbara Herrmann, Achim Behrend, Ela and Micha, Petra Rode, Sabrina Rabow, Roman Hocke, Claudia von Hornstein, Gudrun Strutzenberger, Cornelia Petersen-Laux and Markus Michalek, Christian Meyer, Peter Prange, Gerlinde Jänicke, Arno Müller, Thomas Koschwitz, Jochen Trus, Stephan Schmitter, Michael Treutler and Simon Jäger, Clemens and Sabine Fitzek, Franz Xaver Riedel, Thomas Zorbach, Marcus Meier, the Krings brothers, Jörn Stollmann and all the booksellers and librarians out there. On this occasion all of you find yourselves just plonked onto a list, even though this book and my ten-year anniversary would have been impossible without all your efforts, love and friendship. But, as you can’t have failed to notice, I’ve needed the space for something more important: my readers.
And you on the sofa at home, in the car, on the beach or on the tram – if you’ve made it this far then all that remains for me to say to you finally (as I’ve been doing for ten years at this point) is ‘thank you’. Thanks for all your words, the time and the experiences we’ve shared. Either in real life or in the virtual world.
I hope you will continue to write to me at fitzek@sebastianfitzek.de, because I’d still love to hear from you.
And I promise that I’ll strive to ensure that the reverse remains true.
Best regards
Sebastian Fitzek
On 8 May 2016, forty-four years old, 1.8 metres tall (so long as I don’t slouch) and weighing seventy-eight kilos, that’s two kilos heavier than when I started The Package. (Bloody chocolate bars between chapters.)