Imaginary Worlds

The "Ajax Press" publishing house presents the third book of "micro-detectives" by Swiss writer Melchior Verdenberg, "Imaginary Worlds". (The first book, "Fatal Case", was published in October 2016, and the second - "Night Shadows" - in May 2018). Under the... pseudonym Melchior Verdenberg hides the well-known Swiss lawyer Hans Baumgartner.
Due to his profession, the lawyer constantly deals with conflictual, dramatic, and even tragic life material. This material is largely non-verbalizable, but it has to be translated into the conditional and abstract language of regulatory acts, protocols, expert opinions, judicial speeches, and verdicts, which explain the law. Between the life material and the language of law, there is a chasm, a bridge over which is the personality of the lawyer himself. At the same time, the law, on the one hand, grants the lawyer the right to confidentiality, protecting him from the pressure of conflicting parties, and on the other hand, the law requires him to maintain confidentiality, safeguarding the competitiveness of conflicting parties.
The lawyer finds himself in the role of the barber of King Midas, who is burdened by a secret and wants to express it at least to a dug-out hole. But a wise lawyer, knowing the legend, makes a pipe from the growing reed himself and rephrases his song so that no one can accuse him of disclosing the secret. He became an attorney two decades ago, having previously worked as an assistant district attorney in Zurich. He was a judge in the Military Appeals Court and dealt with cases related to drugs, sex business, and economic crimes. So, the background allowing him to write knowledgeably about mysterious and criminal affairs is quite solid for Melchior Verdenberg. However, as a lawyer, he assures that any coincidences of his stories with real events and people are accidental. Verdenberg's stories are short, written in an intentionally cold language, behind which subtle irony can be discerned; they are not just trifles that help the reader entertain themselves, immersing into the world of others' passions, crimes, and punishments. They provoke thought. It is particularly worth mentioning the translator of this and other books by Verdenberg, Boris Klebnikov (in his translations published works by Hoffman, Hesse, Böll, Grass, Schlink, etc.): it is thanks to him that Melchior Verdenberg spoke to his readers in Russian.