Man Without Illness

A taut, disquieting novel from one of the Netherlands’ most fearless and acclaimed writers.

In Man Without Illness, Arnon Grunberg strips down the idea of Western idealism and cultural neutrality through the story of Samarendra Ambani—Sam—a successful Swiss architect who believes, with quiet conviction, that buildings can make life better. Healthy in body, precise in thought, and untouched by suffering, Sam is the “man without illness.” But when he travels to Baghdad to design an opera house, his sense of order collapses.

Wrongly accused, tortured, humiliated, and expelled from Iraq, Sam returns to Zurich broken but unchanged—or so he believes. He accepts a second commission in Dubai, this time to build a national library, determined to prove that architecture—and rationality—can still hold meaning. But suspicion follows him, and again, the ground beneath him gives way.

A portrait of modern alienation, Man Without Illness is both a psychological drama and a political fable—brilliantly unsettling, mordantly funny, and utterly contemporary.